Roberto Mancini said Manchester City's life was "not over" and vowed to come back stronger in next season's Champions League, after the club went out of the competition despite beating Bayern Munich 2-0 at the Etihad Stadium.

The Italian manager said City would target winning the Europa League, although he acknowledged that having to play on Thursday evenings would make winning the Premier League title even harder.

After a 2-0 win at Villarreal secured Napoli's passage to the Champions League knockout phase by a point from City, who ended Group A with 10, Mancini said: "We will be back and we hope for better next year. We are a good team and we are sorry for our supporters and my players who deserve to play in the Champions League. But we need to improve. We got the hardest group, we knew that before the start.

"Our lives aren't finished now, we will go into the Europa League and it is an important trophy for Manchester City. We need to win more trophies. Maybe now we think that the Europa League is not important but, if you arrive in the final, it is very important. I've never won the Europa League.

"Usually with 10 points you always go through, 99% of the time. It was a tough group and we made some mistakes but that can happen and the game in Naples did it. Congratulations to Napoli."

Regarding Manchester United's exit, after their a 2-1 defeat at Basel, he said: "It is strange for United to go out."

City beat Bayern with goals from David Silva in the 37th minute and Yaya Touré seven minutes after the break confirming the win, but Mancini must now lift his squad for the lesser European club competition while maintaining a title challenge in which they lead United by five points.

Asked how the Manchester clubs being in the Europa League would affect them at home, Mancini said: "I think it doesn't change anything because we play both in the Europa League. The difference is that maybe the Europa League is more hard because we play Thursday and maybe we don't have a lot of time to recover for the games. Only this."

Vincent Kompany, the City captain, said: "The Champions League has finished for us but there's still so much to achieve this season and the Europa League is a realistic competition for us now. We'll celebrate any cup.

"On the pitch we had absolutely no idea [we had not qualified]. I thought at 2-0 up the fans would have been more enthusiastic if we had qualified. We kind of had this feeling but we didn't know. We've got 10 points out of it and the main [problem] was the draw at home to Napoli. I don't think there's any shame of losing over there or against Bayern Munich. Obviously we're disappointed. Well done to Napoli. I think they've had a good season."