After what is set to comfortably be the worst season of his managerial career, Pep Guardiola brutally admitted that neither he nor his players "deserve" any financial bonuses from this summer's lucrative Club World Cup.
City are one of two Premier League teams, along with Chelsea, involved in the inaugural edition of FIFA's latest tournament. The winner of the global footballing jamboree stands to make as much as £97m, although Guardiola isn't expecting to be rewarded with any money or "even a watch".
Sitting down in front of the media while his defending champions are slumped in fifth place, 22 points adrift of league-leading Liverpool, Guardiola delivered some home truths. "We don't deserve a bonus this season," he sniffed on Friday afternoon.
"The bonus, if you win, I don't know how much, it's for the club. The managers, the backroom staff, the players, we don't deserve - not even a watch."
City's defeat to Nottingham Forest at the start of March was the club's ninth of the Premier League campaign - equalling the record number of losses Guardiola has ever suffered throughout a glittering top-flight managerial career which began back in 2008.
The Sky Blues were dumped out of the Champions League before the last 16 even got underway and crashed out in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup. City's only remaining avenue for silverware this season is the FA Cup, where they face Bournemouth in the quarter-final.
Andoni Iraola's riotous south coast outfit have endured a deceptively dreadful run of form themselves over the past six weeks, failing to win any of their previous five matches in normal time (two draws, three defeats). However, Bournemouth did romp to a deserved 2-1 victory over Manchester City when the two sides faced off at the Vitality Stadium in November.
Guardiola warned that he will have a "deeper squad" for Sunday's cup tie compared to that previous trip to the south coast and insisted that "every team can beat every team" in English football.
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