No pressure then on Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola as his chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak wants to win the Quadruple next season as he predicted ‘a massive year’ for the club.
Guardiola, who ended the season trophyless for the first time in his coaching career, has moved quickly to upgrade his squad for next summer, with big money moves for Monaco star Bernardo Silva and Benfica goalkeeper Ederson Moraes.
Still Al Mubarak, who has seen his millions return only one league cup in the last three seasons, is aiming high for next season, as he challenges City to go for a clean sweep of silverware next season.
While the Etihad chief accepts that will be very difficult, a smiling Mubarak said:
‘Why not? The dream of doing the Treble, yes. You mentioned the Double, no I want to do the Treble, or else let’s go for the Quadruple!
‘We should have that aspiration. I have it, no doubt. Sheikh Mansour drives me for it every day, but you look at the organisation, you see it in Pep’s eyes and in everybody within our group.
‘Pep wants to win it all and that’s what I love most about him because that’s how I feel, we want to win it all. We might not be able to achieve it, but I can assure you, we’re going to try to do that.
‘It excites me trying to win the Champions League. That ambition of winning the Champions League and hopefully doing it. That dream excites me every day and knowing we can do it.
‘Next year is going to be a massive year for us. Expectations are high, ambitions are high. I have a lot of hope that we’re going to come back next season very strong and I hope we can deliver to our fans an incredible season next year.
‘My hunger for winning, it’s amazing. When we first won the league, I thought this is it, the greatest feeling you can get in football, you can’t beat this feeling.
‘When we won it the second time, and you want to win it more, you get hungrier, hungrier and hungrier.
‘I can tell you today, because I’ve tasted it, because I’ve felt it, when I look at the future, it’s about successfully executing this plan that we constantly develop every year to try to win, winning it in the right way and achieving history for this club forever, that excites me.
‘We’re on the right track. We have a great manager, we’re all working behind him, supporting him.
‘We are going to do our work this summer. The trajectory is right and I’m very optimistic. I want the fans to share my optimism and support us – we can’t do it without you.’
No English club has ever had a Quadruple winning season. The closest anyone has came was Manchester United’s treble winning side.
But if Guardiola so to come over close to a Quadruple, then he has a lot more work to do in the transfer market, where he desperately needs to find two top fullbacks and a world-class center half.
What do you think of Al Mubarak’s comments? What is a realistic target for Manchester City next season?
