Every Manchester City fan knows exactly what manager Pep Guardiola has already long admitted, the 2024/25 campaign, both on a domestic and European front, has largely been an unmitigated disaster based on our own self set standards over previous seasons.
Everyone will have their own reasons for this, whether it be we were due a significant form dip given our successes, other teams have better worked out how to cope with us, right down to the serious injury situation we had to deal with this season, allied to what many suggest would be a poor transfer strategy in recent seasons.
With City heading into a big summer, we still have a huge clash with Fulham on the final day to determine the league placings and next season's European outlook. For fans keen on adding an extra layer of excitement to the match, exploring the odds available for football betting could be an appealing way to bring the curtain down on the season, with Fulham potentially offering good value. Guardiola has long spoken about player fatigue and the number of matches played in a campaign, and his latest words seem to clearly suggest that he is not best pleased that we still need to contend with FIFA's expanded Club World Cup competition in June.
The club will benefit to the tune of tens of millions from the tournament purely from being involved, and it has already been revealed that should we go all the way to the final and lift the trophy we could earn up to £97 million in total - as a comparison we earned £175.9 million from last year's Premier League campaign and title. It is clear why the club are interested, and if we do have the first team rebuild that many believe we need, the money would clearly aid us on that front.
But it means extra games, a smaller summer with less down time for players, and the gaffer is also now on record calling for the club to reduce the options available to him at first team level or he will quit.
With Guardiola having to leave a number of players out of last Tuesday's 3-1 victory over Bournemouth, he claimed that leaving so many talents out of the group was 'impossible for my soul' stating that he wanted to work with a much smaller group in 2025/26.
Whilst he has been consistent when it came to the number of games faced in a single season, there will certainly be those fans out there who - whilst appreciating he does not want to leave players out - find the timing curious. After the injury issues we have faced and having needed to call on inexperienced players as we juggled the pack, squad rotation is part of the modern game, particularly when being successful and managing the additional workload extra competitions bring.
Part of being a manager is building a squad to compete on all fronts, and then managing that squad with rotation and rest, to leave them all in top condition for the games that lie ahead. Had we not had our depth this season, arguably our form and the campaign that we had would have been even worse.
Even for those who appreciate his point and acknowledge he prefers to work with a smaller group as it will aid team spirit, you cannot choose to not use the available group fully whilst complaining about the fixtures played. It begins to sound like an excuse otherwise, but it certainly means there will be more departures this summer.