Man City news: Khaldoon Al Mubarak on Premier League season

Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak says the club “will be back” after a season that ended trophyless for the first time since 2017.

In an interview with the club’s own media channels, the first part of his annual end-of-season review looked back on a campaign where the Blues lost their stranglehold on the Premier League title.

“It’s a lot of lessons learned,” he said. “I can assure you, this club will do everything possible to come back to the standards that we know we all can achieve.”

The chairman recognised mistakes were made following their fourth straight title in 2023-24 but promised supporters City are already rectifying those as they seek to bounce back in 2025-26.

“This year is another year where I think when I look back, last summer, we probably should have been more aggressive in some of the changes we needed to do,” Al Mubarak said.

“We didn’t do that and that ended up costing us this year. We already started that rebuild of this team in January.

“Normally we like to do our business in the summer and only in case of emergency, a special need that comes up, do we actually go and do business in January. That’s been our MO at least for the past seven or eight years.

“But this January we had to act.”

Pep Guardiola signed a new deal in the first half of the season before their form unravelled but Al Mubarak used one word to describe his relationship with the City manager: “trust”.

“We have trust, and it goes both ways, I think,” Al Mubarak said. “He trusts us. He trusts me. He trusts the organisation. He trusts the club and we trust him.

“And that trust is what, in the good times, allows you to keep winning and in the tough times that’s where that trust really shows up.

“It was not easy for him professionally. It was not easy for him personally.”