Gelson Fernandes believes Manchester City will be stronger for this season's successful campaign.

"It was going to be difficult with a lot of new players to become a good team from the start but I think we have done well (this season)," said the Swiss midfielder.

"You can have periods where your form is not good enough but I think the league table is right for a season where we had 11 new players come to the club.

"Some of the squad were very young, some played in England for the first time and I can see now that it's not easy to build a team to compete for the top in the first season.

"You need to have time to work together and to get to know each other, but we can build on this because we have a lot of young players.

"I'm hoping for even better from us next season. I can promise that we'll work hard when we come back for pre-season, and we'll give the fans what they deserve and we'll try our very best."