Former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss Pep Guardiola has passed an honest verdict on his first season at Premier League giants Manchester City.
The Man City hierarchy had huge expectations after the Spanish boss took charge at the Etihad last summer.
And now, after falling short of the board’s expectations, Guardiola said: “This season has been a lesson for me.”
Guardiola had made an incredible start to his debut campaign in England – with Man City winning first 10 competitive games under the Spaniard which had fuelled the belief that he could revolutionise English football.
However, after a run of poor results and sloppy performances, Guardiola’s side have now crashed out of the Champions League and has seen their Premier League title chances blow up in the face.
And now the former Barca and Bayern boss has promised to learn from his mistakes.
The Man City boss said: “I will be better — definitely. It’s normal when you have seven, eight, nine years as a manager to have a season where you don’t have as much success as before. It can happen.”
“You learn from that.”
“I never thought I arrived here that I knew absolutely everything.”
“I tried to adapt to the players as much as possible. I did and I think we will be better.”
After analysing the loopholes this term, Guardiola pointed out that the biggest shortcoming in the Man City side is that they lack finishing in front of goal.
And this cost them in the second-leg clash with AS Monaco and the Spaniard said that he had predicted that the problem would bite them during his second game in charge in the Champions League qualifier at Steaua Bucharest.
Man City had clinched a 5-0 win but Aguero had missed two penalties and Guradiola accentuated that he knew that such lack of precision would cost them in upcoming games.
And his worst fears came true when Man City dropped crucial points at home in games against Middlesbrough, Southampton, Stoke and Everton.
He said: “I knew in the first Champions League game – especially in attack – against Steaua Bucharest when we won 5-0.”
“Normally, that game would have been 12-0. We missed two penalties and so many chances. I was happy because the first target was to qualify but after that, in the Everton and Middlesbrough games, I realised we had to play really, really, well to win games.”
“We created chances but we had problems scoring them and we suffered.”
“We have to be honest with ourselves, we were not good enough to compete for the Premier League.”
However, Guardiola is confident that Man City could still finish in the top four and clinch the FA Cup title.