Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak has conceded the club were not “aggressive” enough in the transfer market last summer.
City endured a disappointing 2024-25 campaign by their high standards, failing to mount a strong defence of their Premier League title and exiting the Champions League before the last 16.
Khaldoon now accepts the club should have done more to strengthen the squad before the campaign.
The £30.8million signing Savinho and the return of veteran Ilkay Gundogan were the only major incoming deals last summer, while key forward Julian Alvarez was among those to depart.
Speaking in his annual end-of-season interview, Khaldoon told the club’s website: “This year is another year where I think when I look back, last summer, we probably should have been more aggressive in some of the changes we needed to do.
“We didn’t do that and that ended up costing us this year.”
City’s underwhelming start to the season forced them to enter the transfer market in January and hastily bring in Omar Marmoush, Abdukodir Khusanov, Vitor Reis and Nico Gonzalez at a combined cost of more than £172million.
The squad regeneration will continue this summer, with the club hoping to make additions before the start of the Club World Cup. City’s first match in that tournament is on June 18.
Khaldoon said: “We already started that rebuild of this team in January. Normally we like to do our business in the summer and, only in case of emergency, a special need that comes up, do we actually go and do business in January.
“That’s been our MO at least for the last seven or eight years – but this January we had to act.”
He added: “That’s four players in January, and that gives you an idea of what’s coming this summer because we will continue.
“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.
“And we’ll go about our business and it will be very clear, very swift. And our objective is to try to be ready with the new squad for the Club World Cup.”
City’s disappointments this term included defeat in the FA Cup final, leaving the Community Shield as their only silverware from the campaign.
Khaldoon said: “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.
“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.”
