Manager Pep Guardiola said he would "quit" City if he wasn't given a smaller squad after he had to leave out several key players in the final games of the season. Despite this, the Citizens have been linked with the likes of Morgan Gibbs-White of Nottingham Forest, Tijjani Reijnders of AC Milan and Lyon’s Rayan Cherki, which suggests that the club are preparing to offload a number of players in the coming months in what will be a significant squad overhaul.
City have qualified for next season’s UEFA Champions League but failed to lift any silverware last season, unless you count the Community Shield, which Guardiola defended in one of his final press conferences. Al Mubarak has spoken to the club website about the team’s ambition heading into the transfer market and how they want to conduct their business early before the start of the Club World Cup so they may build a squad that can improve next season.
“I can tell you today, 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,” he explained.
“And we’ll go about our business, and it will be very clear, very swift. Our objective is to try to be ready with the new squad for the Club World Cup.”
Al Mubarak says he can sense a hunger in the squad to once again fight for the Premier League title as well as another Champions League trophy after what has been a poor season by City’s standards. He sent a message to fans, stating that lessons will be learnt and that next season is a new beginning.
“We will be back. This season is a season that's now behind us. Today is a new day. We start working and preparing for next season.
"And by the way, we've been doing that since January. And 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. I can assure you, this club will do everything possible to come back to the standards that we know we all can achieve and that we know, we will achieve."