Friday 21 April 2017 21:40, UK
Pep Guardiola says he would “completely understand” if the Manchester City hierarchy were not happy with how the team has fared this season.
City have been unable to sustain a Premier League title challenge to Chelsea and Tottenham in Guardiola's first season as manager and they were also knocked out of the Champions League at the last-16 stage, although they do face Arsenal in the FA Cup semi-finals this weekend.
Guardiola is content with some of City's progress this campaign but knows the club's expectations of him are high, with bosses rating last term's return of a fourth-placed finish, Champions League semi-final berth and League Cup win as a disappointing year.
"I don't think they will be happy. The expectations of the club are as high as possible and are to win the titles that are on the table," Guardiola said.
"So if they are not happy I can completely understand. We could have done better in terms of the results and even in the way we played because we wanted to be in the race for the title and in the Champions League until the end.
"Despite the fact that I am happy with what we've done, it is still not enough."
City and Guardiola were criticised after last month's Champions League exit to Monaco, when they went out on away goals after losing the second leg 3-1 after taking a 5-3 advantage from the Etihad, but the Spaniard feels the response to that loss has been positive.
City played out a pulsating 1-1 draw with Liverpool in their first outing after the defeat before decent performances, even though they did not win, in testing back-to-back fixtures against Arsenal and Chelsea.
He said: "This is a fantastic club, a fantastic team. I'm so proud of them, especially in the bad moments like how we overcame our defeat in the Champions League against Liverpool.
"The people cannot imagine when you are out of the Champions League, to play Liverpool just three days later, who have had a week of rest, 1-0 down, how we played that game.
"That is how I want to see my team. We went to London to play Arsenal and in the first half we played as well as we have all season."
