Manchester City chief Khaldoon Al Mubarak has expressed his unhappiness at the Citizens' final league position last season.
Pep Guardiola's arrival to England last summer was greeted with a lot of hype but the Spanish manager failed to deliver as Manchester City finished the Premier League campaign in 3rd place, having failed to win a single trophy.
While Guardiola has been appointed by City with a long term vision in mind, club chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak has made it clear in a recent interview with the club's website that he was not left happy with the Citizens' final league position last season.
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'. This is not the ambition, not at all. There's nothing to celebrate.
"I think it's something which is important — it's critical, and I know it requires a lot of hard work, particularly in this league — to be in the top four, but our ambition is to win the league. And if not winning it, to go as close as physically possible to winning the league. I think this year, in that area, we didn't do that."
"In a normal circumstance ending the season without a trophy would be a very disappointing season, but it's not, it really isn't. I think while I would say not winning the league and not being within close range of winning the title is no doubt a disappointment, not winning either the FA Cup or League Cup is also a disappointment.
"We are 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're truly going in a direction that's positive.
"I'm 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. We've gone through several cycles over the last nine years and we're in the middle of one now - you can see where we're going.
"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's very exciting, very entertaining and one that I think the fans will grow to love and the results will come. I have no doubts the results will come."
Source: tribalfootball.com