MANCHESTER CITY have warned Prem rivals they plan to build their greatest trophy-winning team.
After a first season without a major domestic trophy since 2016-17, chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak vowed “incredible” striker Erling Haaland will spearhead a decade of glory.
In his address to supporters, the City chief also:
- Revealed the club messed up by not being “aggressive” enough in last summer’s transfer market
- Conceded it led to the most “challenging” campaign since their big-money 2008 takeover at City
- Promised a mega spending spree from next week to boost their Club World Cup bid
- Insisted his bond of “trust” with boss Pep Guardiola means this season is a one-off blip.
Guardiola lifted 15 trophies before this season’s duck. But Khaldoon declared: “We will be back and the aim is to build something even better. Erling is the most prolific striker in the world.
“We have him completely bought in to everything that is City.
“He’s an incredible talent, an incredible person and at the right age.
“When we look at the next ten years, Erling is at the heart of what we are building.
“History is great — but then there’s a new page to write. The future is about what we can do together. How we can keep winning.
“We’ve been working and preparing for next season since January.
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“We’ll take all the good things and the not so good things from this season, learn from it, improve and get better.”
His end-of-season club interview made no mention of the charges of 130 financial rule breaches — vehemently denied by City.
These are still being considered by an independent commission.
And Khaldoon told fans: “The beauty of football is there’s always a new season. And today we get to turn this page.
“The season that just passed is behind us. The records are there. What we achieved and what we haven’t. And it’s basically black and white.
“Many circumstances just didn’t work our way.
“Last summer, we probably should have been more aggressive in some changes we needed to do.
“We didn’t do that and it ended up costing us. We already started that team rebuild in January.”
City spent £172million in the winter window on forward Omar Marmoush from Frankfurt — plus defenders Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis and Porto midfielder Nico Gonzalez.
Norwegian superstar Haaland also penned a new mega-money, ten-year deal in January.
And that will NOT be the end of their spending as Khaldoon said: “We’ve identified who are the targets, in what positions, and have clear No 1 and No 2 options.
“We’ll go about our business and it will be very clear, very swift.
“Our objective is to be ready with the new squad for the Club World Cup.”
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