Manchester City

Manchester City aiming for Premier League, Champions League success

By Danielle Joynson, Staff Reporter | 31 May 2017

Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak says that the team's objective next season is to win the Premier League and Champions League.

Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak has claimed that the team need to aim for Premier League and Champions League glory next season.

Pep Guardiola's side finished third in the table in the 2016-17 campaign, and ended the season without silverware having stumbled in the EFL Cup and FA Cup.

The North-West outfit were also knocked out of the Champions League at the last-16 stage following a defeat to Monaco across two legs.

Al-Mubarak believes that the commitments of European football do affect a team's chances of winning the league after the last two champions - Leicester City and Chelsea - only had domestic action to focus on.

"There's no doubt it's extremely hard to do the double, because of the nature of the Premier League and the level of competition in the Champions League," the chairman told City's official website. "This is an unbelievably challenging feat to achieve, but nevertheless you would not be in the position I am if you don't think and believe you can do it.

"The last two champions in the Premier League have won the league without playing in Europe. So that's shown, in my view, the advantage that that puts for the people who are not competing in Europe.

"The point remains that going into next year, no doubt, teams that are in Europe will have a more challenging experience of winning the league than teams not in Europe but that's no excuse because, for us, our job is to try to win both the Premier League and the Champions League and to do everything we can to do so and that will remain our objective."

Guardiola joined the club from Bayern Munich last season.