Dubai: Manchester City produced a stunning comeback to beat Aston Villa 3-2 and win the English Premier League last weekend. They won the title by one point from Liverpool after a fascinating season full of twists and turns and high drama.
Manchester City and City Football Group Chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak shared his thoughts on the season and offered some insights on the club’s summer transfer plans.
Did you expect such a tense final day of the season?
I thought 10 years ago we would never see this again or I thought I would never live through 90 minutes like that, 90 minutes like 10 years ago but to be honest, this goes very, very close. This game, Aston Villa, the last 15 minutes, but the whole 90 minutes stand out. The way we dealt with the challenge, suffered, but then had the personality, had the attitude to pull this incredible victory. A really, really special memory that I’ll never forget.
You have bolstered your attack by signing Erling Haaland. What are you expecting of him?
We have in Haaland arguably the best number nine in the world at the right age. When you look at the next 10 to 15 years in Haaland, we have invested in that striker for the future. I mean he is a very, very unique, incredibly talented striker that I think the whole world has been looking at and I would say every big team in the world wanted to join and we’re delighted, absolutely delighted that Haaland chose to join Manchester City.
You also have brought in Julian Alvarez...
In Alvarez I think we’ve found one of the most talented, young strikers in South America.
Are you pleased with talents the academy is producing?
It took a while to get the academy going, these things take years. We invested, we were patient, we kept at it and now you’ve seen over the last couple of years, the academy is producing the type of talent that we, that Sheikh Mansour envisioned on day one when he invested into the club which was investing into a team that’s sustainable and that has a very special academy that we are going to enhance and grow and improve and that ultimately we are going to have that combination of talent that we are obviously going to be bringing in from all around the world but the talent that’s coming in locally from within the academy.
Will you look to add more players to the team for next season?
I can confirm that there will be more players coming in. We are looking to strengthen the team in the areas that we need strengthening. As you know, every season some players leave, and then we have to continuously refresh the team. We won the league on Sunday. Believe me, I think all of us were happy and celebrating Sunday night after the game, but within hours, the conversation between me, Ferran, Pep, Txiki was about next year and how we can keep improving the team and how we are going to approach next year. So, our mindset, while celebratory, it immediately flips to the next page, which is the future.