LIVERPOOL -- Manuel Pellegrini said Manchester City must forget about the title race and concentrate on regaining their Premier League form after their 3-0 defeat to Liverpool.
City missed the chance to close the gap on leaders Leicester City, who they trail by 10 points with a game in hand, while title rivals Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal were also beaten.
More worryingly for Pellegrini, his side now face a battle to secure a top-four spot and Champions League place after neighbours Manchester United drew level on points while West Ham United are just a point behind.
City have now lost three successive Premier League games for the first time since November 2008 and Pellegrini says they must concentrate on rediscovering their league form.
He told a news conference: "I am not thinking about the title and not thinking not to qualify for the Champions League. The most important thing is to recover our performance in the Premier League because we lost the last three.
"The Premier League continues exactly the same all season. Not one team makes the difference. It is important to recover our performance in the Premier League to the performance in the last two in the Champions League and the Capital One Cup final."
City were comfortably beaten by Liverpool -- three days after their Capital One Cup victory over the same team. But Pellegrini thought his team lacked freshness compared to Jurgen Klopp's side.
Liverpool made five changes, with Daniel Sturridge, Phillipe Coutinho and Lucas Leiva, who had all played 120 minutes, missing. City were only without Yaya Toure from the outfield players to feature at Wembley.
Pellegrini said: "We didn't expect to lose here 3-0. I don't think that was the difference, especially [in the] first half. Second half maybe they played better but we didn't deserve to be 2-0 down at half-time. From the beginning we were not fresh. Liverpool had more energy and they recovered the ball at high pace.
"They could make more changes and we didn't have any midfielders to change without Yaya. We had just defenders or one striker to make the change."