Manchester City's hopes of progressing in the Champions League hang by a thread after they lost 3-1 to Ajax in Amsterdam. Samir Nasri scored first for the visitors, but then Siem De Jong, Niklas Moisander and Christian Eriksen all bagged goals for the Dutch side to hand City their second defeat this season.

Boss Roberto Mancini blamed a lack of preparation for the loss.

"I said that it is my fault for this defeat, but on the pitch you are always 11 players, and we play with three, only for five minutes, because we wanted to have one player in the hole, and for this reason I don't think that is important to play with three, four, five, six, seven, we play always 11. If you have a spirit, or a quality to play in Champions League, you can play, if not, you can't. This is the problem, and it's not important the tactics, tactics is not important."

Arsenal suffered a shock 2-0 defeat at home to Schalke. The German side dominated the game, and were rewarded with two goals in the last 15 minutes from Klaas Jan-Huntelaar and Ibrahim Afellay.

Arsenal assistant manager Steve Bould felt that some of the team's players have appeared tired since coming back from the international break.

"We looked jaded, I don't know why that is. You know, coming off the international break we haven't performed really. I don't know if that's the reason but we certainly looked jaded, certainly with the ball lacking a bit of confidence I think."

So after four out of five British defeats in the Champions League this week, its up to the three sides playing tonight to turn things around. In the Europa League Tottenham travel to Maribor Branik, Liverpool host Anzhi Makhachkala, and Newcastle play Club Bruges.

Written and presented by Alfred Joyner