Abu Dhabi: Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak has said third place is not good enough and number one is the only spot he wants the club to be.
In an interview with City’s in-house TV channel, he said: “There’s nothing that annoys me more than people either calling me or sending me a message congratulating me on third place.
My answer was pretty standard to everyone: ‘Don’t congratulate me on getting third, there’s nothing to congratulate. Only congratulate me if we win the league’.
“So, this is not the ambition, not at all. There’s nothing to celebrate.
“We are a team now that expects to win every year at least one trophy. And then to go further every year in the Champions League.
“So from that perspective the season has been a disappointment.
“But if you look at it from a different lens we are truly going in a direction that is positive.”
City finished third in the Premier League but were knocked out of the Champions League by Monaco in the last 16. The season before, Manuel Pellegrini took City to the Champions League semi-finals and won the League Cup.
Al Mubarak, however, has vowed to provide manager Pep Guardiola with the best talent in the world to complete his Etihad revolution this summer.
“I am very excited about how we are developing as a team, how Pep has taken the squad and really started a process of going through that natural cycle of development,” he said.
“I have high confidence that we are going in the right direction.
“You’ve seen many glimpses of us playing a type of football that is very exciting and very entertaining that I think the fans will grow to love and the results will come, I have no doubts the results will come.
“Pep has introduced a new way of playing for us, an exciting way but a way that requires work and which requires a set of players that I think function within that system and probably If I look back at this season that puzzle wasn’t complete and I hope this summer we support Pep in completing that puzzle.”
