LONDON: Manchester City's meek exit from the Champions League following Wednesday's 1-0 semi-final second leg defeat by Real Madrid suggested that incoming head coach Pep Guardiola cannot arrive quickly enough.
While Fernando's first-half own goal at the Bernabeu was all that separated the teams, City barely laid a glove on Zinedine Zidane's men, registering just two shots on target over the 180 minutes of the tie.
Manuel Pellegrini, who Guardiola will replace, argued that there had been nothing between the sides, but players, fans and pundits were united in expressing their frustration.
City went "out with a whimper", according to the back-page headline in The Times, while the Daily Mail's Martin Samuel said that the team were "sleepwalking" under Pellegrini.
Analysing the match for BT Sport, the former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand said: "If you're going to go out, you want to go out all guns blazing, fighting.
"You want to think, 'We've given it everything we've got, we've thrown the kitchen sink at it.' I don't think they'll be able to go home or go into the changing room and say that. And that's the disappointing thing."
City goalkeeper Joe Hart chose his words more carefully, but the annoyance was visible on his face during a televised post-match interview.
"We just didn't have that little bit more," said the England goalkeeper. "Did we do enough to win the game? I don't know."
Frustration manifested itself on the pitch, too, as lone striker Sergio Aguero, starved of any kind of service, dropped deeper and deeper in search of the ball.
City's top scorer this season with 28 goals, the Argentina international mustered just two shots -- both off-target -- during the tie and has now gone five Champions League games without registering an effort on target.
Record signing Kevin De Bruyne, inspiration behind the quarter-final victory over Paris Saint-Germain, struggled to influence proceedings after being moved to the left flank to accommodate Yaya Toure, whose lumbering performance was described as "woeful" by The Daily Telegraph.
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