WEMBLEY, England -- You won't find anyone at Manchester City willing to call this season a success. Not when it's measured against title winning campaigns and the treble in 2023.
But even in dealing a tough year, Man City are squeezing out something positive. Fourth in the Premier League table, City have four games left to seal Champions League qualification for next season -- and after beating Nottingham Forest 2-0 at Wembley on Sunday, they can still add a trophy when they face Crystal Palace in the FA Cup final next month.
The so-called "big six" in the Premier League aren't immune to bad seasons. But where Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham have all experienced truly miserable campaigns, City's worst effort could still end with two key targets secured.
The point is that Pep Guardiola and his players don't even do bad seasons like everybody else.
"I said many times, this season has not been good because we define it on the Premier League and we have always had consistency, but this season it could not happen," said Guardiola. "We tried to halt the damage, especially with qualification for the Champions League.
"This season has not been good. We are a thousand million points behind Liverpool. It's not good. We have not been good but the damage will be minor. [Winning the FA Cup] is not going to confuse that the season has been good. The club has to take the right decisions so next season will be better."
A glance at the teamsheet at Wembley was enough to show the difficulties Guardiola has faced this season. Of the XI that took on Chelsea in last year's FA Cup semifinal, only three started against Forest.
Kyle Walker and Julián Álvarez have left. John Stones, Nathan Aké and Rodri are all injured. Manuel Akanji is still recovering from a long lay-off, while Phil Foden and Kevin De Bruyne have struggled to find consistent form. Among those picked in their place, Guardiola deployed two midfielders -- Matheus Nunes and Nico O'Reilly -- at full-back, and used a full-back -- Rico Lewis -- in midfield.
Forest -- with Ryan Yates, Neco Williams and Ola Aina all absent -- have their issues, too, and this led to 18-year-old defender Zach Abbott being handed his second appearance. But it was City who managed their problems better, and it will be Guardiola, rather than Nuno Espirito Santo, who is back at Wembley to face Palace in May.
The City boss played his part from the touchline. With Omar Marmoush and Savinho operating as split strikers, he was able to pack the midfield with a box of Mateo Kovacic, Bernardo Silva, Jack Grealish and Lewis. It pressed the life out of Forest, who barely created anything during a first half that City dominated.
City scored early in both halves -- first Lewis and then Josko Gvardiol -- and although Morgan Gibbs-White hit the crossbar and the post, Forest never really looked to be likely winners. Their first-half display will have been particularly disappointing to the fervent Forest supporters who were determined to enjoy just their second trip to Wembley since it was revamped in 2007.
"The effort was there," said Nuno. "The fans stayed with us until the end of the game. We gave it our all."
City have been here 28 times since then, and it was perhaps unsurprising that around 5,000 of their tickets went unsold. Some fans might not have turned up, but the team certainly did.
The control that Guardiola craves is slowly coming back.
"Our process was a little bit better," he said. "I didn't want it to be an open game. It helped us in the first minutes to score a goal. We continued to play at that tempo, they had chances with the posts, and we had three or four transitions that we should have done but I think the game in general was really good.
"I want to say thank you to our fans, I know how difficult it is to come here with work tomorrow, the tickets and the travel. I can't thank them enough and hopefully they will join us and see us in the final."
When Liverpool had a difficult season under Jurgen Klopp in 2022-23, they finished fifth in the league, dropped into the Europa League and were knocked out of the FA Cup in the fourth round. Chelsea finished 12th the same year and didn't make it past the third round in either domestic cup competition.
Arsenal finished outside the Champions League places as recently as 2022 and haven't won a trophy since 2020. The less said about Manchester United and Tottenham the better with the pair currently sitting 14th and 16th in the Premier League table.
Whatever happens in these final few weeks, there will be no wild City celebrations or open-top bus parades through Manchester. Guardiola has been clear about that.
But as the run-in approaches, there is still something to fight for. And with Champions League qualification in sight and a third straight FA Cup final to come, there could yet be something to smile about this season.