Pep Guardiola has pointed to how the “stupid detail” of Manchester City’s underwhelming body language when celebrating goals shows the spirit has been lost and has to be recovered if they are to challenge for the title next season.
The champions have endured a disappointing Premier League campaign and are third on 61 points, 17 behind the leaders, Liverpool. They face Nottingham Forest in Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final at Wembley.
“The spirit – we need to recover,” the manager said. “In celebrations, when we scored a goal, the way we celebrated it, we didn’t celebrate. When we scored the first goal in October, November, December, January, we didn’t celebrate in the way of the [right] body language [of how] we celebrate.
“That is a stupid detail but it says a lot about the passion we had all the time in this season – we didn’t have it. But we had 12-13 players [owing to injuries], we could not recover. We did not have the pace and energy that it is necessary to have.”
Regardless of how the Cup run or league season ends Guardiola will not be satisfied. “I’ve said many times, the season has not been good, regardless [of whether] we reach the final or we go to the Champions League,” Guardiola said. “What dictates whether the season is good is the Premier League because it gives you, week by week, happiness, good momentum.
“Next season will be better. I think everyone has learned the lesson. We’ll compete in the Premier League a little bit better than what happened this season. But [an] FA Cup win will not give you the certainty of coming back to what we were. OK, we’ll be happy because we compete to win, but that will not change it. We have to recover that spirit that we had [for nearly all of the] nine years [since he was appointed].”
City’s goalkeeper Ederson is a doubt to face Forest because of a leg problem.
