Pablo Zabaleta has declared that Manchester City's return of a mere two points in the Champions League this season is "not good enough," adding it will be their own fault if they do not qualify for the last 16.
The Premier League champions lost a two-goal lead as they could only draw 2-2 with CSKA Moscow on Tuesday, while they are yet to win in Europe this term.
And Zabaleta, 29, rued City's inability to produce their best form in the Champions League after suffering two group-stage exits in the past three seasons.
"Now it's really hard for us," he said in the Daily Mirror. "It was really painful to only draw. It's not good enough for this team to only draw here.
"We're much better than we're showing in this competition. For us to go through now, it's very complicated. It will be hard for us to qualify for the round of 16 with only two points from three games and that's not good enough.
"We still have a chance and we will do everything to qualify, but if you don't win games you can't get through the group. And we haven't done that yet. We'll see what the other results are. But the most important thing was that we get our result and what we did was not good enough."
City conceded an 89th-minute winner against Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena in September and another late goal when Bedras Natcho converted a controversial penalty to give the Russian champions a draw on Tuesday.
"It's so frustrating," Zabaleta added. "We were 2-0 up at half-time and that was a good result for us. It's not the first time this has happened and it's something we need to sort out as soon as possible.
"We're one team when we play with intensity, with the ball. When we start to give some balls away so cheaply, we're not the same team. It's then that we don't know how to control the game. Sometimes, you can win games even when you're not playing at your best and I think we find that hard.
"We weren't very lucky with the penalty decision. I think there was a penalty on [Edin] Dzeko that wasn't given in the first half. The referee shouldn't give that penalty to them if he doesn't give ours."