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19 hours ago
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The Manchester City chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, has said the club were not aggressive enough in the transfer market last summer, and is confident City can secure their summer targets in time for the Club World Cup next month.
Pep Guardiola’s side endured a disappointing 2024-25 campaign by their high standards, failing to mount a strong defence of their Premier League title and exiting the Champions League in the playoffs against Real Madrid.
Khaldoon now accepts the club should have done more to strengthen the squad before the campaign. The £30.8msigning of Savinho and the return of Ilkay Gündogan were the only major incoming deals last summer, while forward Julián Alvarez was among those to depart.
City’s underwhelming start to the season led to extensive January spending, with Omar Marmoush, Abdukodir Khusanov, Vitor Reis and Nico González brought in for a combined cost of more than £172m. Speaking in his annual end-of-season interview, Khaldoon confirmed that spending on new players will continue this summer.
“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,” Khaldoon told the club’s official website. “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,” he added. “That’s been our MO at least for the last seven or eight years - but this January we had to act.”
“That’s four players in January, and that gives you an idea of what’s coming this summer because we will continue,” Khaldoon, who will be working with a new director of football in Hugo Viana, continued.
“We have clearly identified who exactly are the targets, in what positions, and we have our clear number one option, our clear number two option. And we’ll go about our business and it will be very clear, very swift. And our objective is to try to be ready with the new squad for the Club World Cup.”
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City finished third in the Premier League to secure Champions League football next term, but lost to Crystal Palace in the FA Cup final, leaving the Community Shield as their only silverware from the campaign. The club are also still awaiting an outcome from the hearing into 130 alleged Premier League charges of breaching financial rules.
Khaldoon said: “This season is a season that’s now behind us. Today is a new day. We start working and preparing for next season. We will take all the good things and the not so good things from this season and learn from it and improve from it and get better. This club will do everything possible to come back to the standards that we know we all can and will achieve.”
The City chairman also paid tribute to Kevin De Bruyne, describing the departing captain as “the greatest player to play for this club”.
