Manchester City boss, Pep Guardiola, has admitted that, “this season has been a lesson for me” warning Premier League rivals, that he will be better next term.
The former Barcelona and Bayern Munich coach won his first 10 competitive matches, to fuel talk that he would take English football by storm. But City have since gone off the boil.
“I will be better — definitely,” Guardiola said. “It’s normal when you have seven, eight, nine years as a manager to have a season where you don’t have as much success as before. It can happen.
“You learn from that.
“I never thought I arrived here that I knew absolutely everything.
“I tried to adapt to the players as much as possible. I did and I think we will be better.”
Guardiola has also highlighted a weakness in his City squad, which he believes has cost them this campaign.
“I knew in the first Champions League game – especially in attack – against Steaua Bucharest when we won 5-0,” he said, speaking ahead of Saturday’s home clash with Hull.
“Normally, that game would have been 12-0. We missed two penalties and so many chances. I was happy because the first target was to qualify but after that, in the Everton and Middlesbrough games, I realised we had to play really, really, well to win games.
“We created chances but we had problems scoring them and we suffered.
“We have to be honest with ourselves, we were not good enough to compete for the Premier League.”