Raheem Sterling could yet claim the Premier League Golden Boot but even that wouldn't make him believe it has been his best year in the competition.
The England international continued his progression at Manchester City against Watford on Tuesday with two goals that take him to 19 for the campaign - a personal best. He is four behind Jamie Vardy in the race to be crowned the division's top scorer with one league game to go against Norwich.
But if Sterling still has one eye on individual achievements, nothing he can get will make up for the lack of trophies that have accompanied his goals.
"The previous season I scored less goals but won more trophies – which is the most important thing, if your goals are contributing to winning trophies," he said after the Watford game. "I wouldn’t say it’s my best season."
Sterling's comments chime with Pep Guardiola's assessment after the game, where the manager twice turned opportunities to praise individual achievements into criticism of the overall team consistency. The manager is never keen to single out individuals, but the message ahead of Real Madrid is that the collective have to be there.
"It's important for Raheem to score a goal but we cannot forget we finished far away from the champions so this season was not good for us in the Premier League," he said. "It was much better than the other 18 teams - the distance from first to second is big but second to third is big too - but it is not enough so the personal achievements always must be related to the achievements of the team and it was not perfect.
"I don't have any complaints [about Raheem], I love when the players can achieve their desires and score goals and have the commitment to score goals. I like it, I cannot say anything else but Raheem has to know like all of us have to know that we were far away from Liverpool.
"I think it is the first time we are able to win four games [in a row] in the Premier League and two seasons ago we were able to make 18, last season we made 14, and this is the first time we got four in a row winning. That is how poor our consistency was this season because we are the same people and it happens because something was wrong. We have to discover what for next season."
