Pep Guardiola is hoping to salvage Manchester City's season, starting with an FA Cup quarter-final clash against Bournemouth where the team will look to avenge the defeat that sparked their decline this season.
Man City's 32-game unbeaten run in the Premier League came to a shock end when they were beaten 2-1 at Bournemouth in November.
Coming just days after a League Cup last-16 exit at Tottenham, it was the first time City had lost successive games in all competitions since September 2023.
England champions for the previous four seasons, City surrendered their lead in the Premier League to Liverpool as a result of their loss at the Vitality Stadium and won only once in their next 11 games in all competitions.
Looking back at City's first-ever defeat to Bournemouth, Guardiola said he could see the signs of their impending collapse.
"It was our first defeat in the Premier League this season. We have to learn from it and try to reach the semi-finals," Guardiola said on Friday.
"That was the first game where we were a little bit not competitive in terms of the standards we required.
"The game before we lost in the (League) Cup against Spurs. We were good there. But I could not turn around the symptoms that the (Bournemouth) game started, in terms of being present and winning duels.
"I tried for many months. This time it took more time."
Guardiola said his team has not played well so far and does not deserve a bonus even if they salvage the season by winning the Club World Cup.
Guardiola's team are in fifth place in the Premier League and crashed out of the Champions League and League Cup. City could finish without a major trophy for the first time since Guardiola's maiden season in charge in 2016-17.
They have one last hope of landing domestic silverware - the FA Cup.
But even if they win the FA Cup or the Club World Cup in the summer, Guardiola believes City players have underachieved and should not think about any rewards; Fifa had announced this week that the Club World Cup winners will earn up to $125 million in prize money, with a total pot of $1 billion going to the 32 participating clubs.
"We don't deserve it this season. We don't deserve a bonus this season. If we win, I don't know how much but it is for the club," Guardiola said on Friday.
"The manager, the players, the backroom staff, we don't deserve. Not even a watch."
With City fifth in the league, Guardiola is also focused on qualifying for the Champions League next season. He said this campaign has been a reality check for him after getting used to competing on several fronts at this stage of the season.
"You learn in the good moments and the bad moments. Experiences can happen many times and if you don't learn, they will happen again," he said.
"It is good for me, I will learn a lot and hopefully the club as well. When I said in the past that qualification for the Champions League was a huge success, they didn't believe me but now they believe me."
Guardiola said his first target now is to extend the club's record by reaching a seventh straight FA Cup semi-final.
"They (Bournemouth) have a special way of playing and it works with the players and the ideas that they have," Guardiola said.
"Every team plays in a specific way and they do it really well. Other teams are more direct, other teams want more crosses."
