Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola admits he has had a “really poor” performance this season. City, who have won four successive Premier League titles, are languishing in fifth in the Premier League, 22 points behind leaders Liverpool, while they were knocked out of the UEFA Champions League by Real Madrid at the competition’s last-16 stage.
City take on Bournemouth in the FA Cup quarter-final.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola believes he should have done “much better” this season, describing his own performance as “really poor”.
Having won four successive Premier League titles, City are currently languishing in fifth, a point behind the guaranteed UEFA Champions League places, but 22 adrift of league leaders Liverpool.
Guardiola, widely regarded as among the greatest managers of his generation, has won six Premier League titles since joining City eight-and-a-half years ago, and never finished lower than third with any club across his career in management.
When asked to assess his own performance this year, the 54-year-old said: “This season? Really poor.
“The opponents never gave us a red carpet to win the titles that we won in the past. My duty was to overcome the situation much better than I have done [this season].”
Crediting the dismal campaign to “a few details”, Guardiola added: “Hopefully this will not happen next season. This is important.”
City would make a seventh consecutive FA Cup semi-final with victory over Bournemouth at Vitality Stadium on Sunday.
However, Guardiola said that even winning the competition and qualifying for the Champions League would not make up for City’s poor Premier League campaign.
“Of course it would be nice to arrive in the final of the FA Cup and win it, and qualify for the Champions League,” the Catalan boss said.
“That would be a big success but the season has been poor and it’s not going to change.
“Our standards and many things were not good, this is the reality. That’s not going to change for the fact we win one title or qualify for the Champions League.
“We’ll be happy, of course. We want to do it but the season has not been good.”
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