Manchester United have indisputably made progress this season, but when their staff and players sat down to watch the Champions League semi-final across town on Wednesday night, it might not have felt like it.
Erik ten Hag's team have won a trophy, are in another cup final and should return to the Champions League. But the ultimate goal is to win the league and to do that they need to usurp Pep Guardiola's Manchester City. Good luck with that.
City's 4-0 demolition of Real Madrid in the second leg of their semi-final is probably the statement performance in European football this season. They are two games from the Treble and United are the most likely side to stop them from matching the feats of 1999 now, when they meet in the FA Cup final at Wembley on June 3.
ALSO READ: Ten Hag will have to get creative with FA Cup final XI to beat City
Anything can happen in a one-off game in a cup final - although it feels like these two sides are going in different directions as the season ends - but matching that level of performance for an entire season is another challenge altogether.
It's not impossible of course. Arsenal have risen from sixth to challenge City for 35 games this season and even if Guardiola's team win their final three games of the season, they will win the title with 94 points, which is one more than last season but less than it took to claim top spot between 2017/18 and 2019/20.
But it also feels like City have been searching for something this season, a formula to continue to play the kind of football Guardiola demands while incorporating Erling Haaland. It's fair to say they've found it now.
So if we're not expecting City to regress any time, then United need to find a way to hit 95 points to at least challenge for the title. They could get to 75 points if they beat Bournemouth, Chelsea and Fulham, but that still leaves another 20 points to add to their total.
The addition of a striker will certainly help with that. Put a reliable No. 9 in this team and it would surely push the points total past 80, at the very least. This team should also improve for another summer under Ten Hag and more depth in midfield and maybe a couple of upgrades will add a few more points.
But a lot of the improvement will have to come from within. It's easy to throw the accusation at City that they have spent their way to success, but Guardiola has also improved almost every single player within that squad. He is the genius behind it all.
United might make a couple of key signings this summer, but the players alone won't be enough. Ten Hag and his coaching staff must then be able to help them raise their games when they start playing at Old Trafford.
You could look at that City squad and make a case for every player, maybe with the exception of Kalvin Phillips, being better now than they were when they arrived at the Etihad. That is the hallmark of a world-class coach and what United believe they have with Ten Hag.
The man himself will believe it too and there have been signs of that this year. Luke Shaw and Marcus Rashford have kicked on to another level under Ten Hag, but eventually he needs to do that with almost an entire squad.
He knows that Guardiola is the standard bearer as well. He worked with him for two years at Bayern Munich, coaching the B team during the Catalan's first couple of years in Bavaria.
Ten Hag eventually wants United to be as dynamic as Guardiola's City and he has had a close-up view of the kind of training sessions it takes to get there.
Speaking to Maarten Meijer for his book Ten Hag: The Biography, released last year, the United manager discussed his time in Munich.
“I do not want to compare myself to Guardiola, his list of honours is unparalleled. But Guardiola certainly inspired me," he said.
"Every coach wants to play attacking football like his teams do. Adventurous, fast, dynamic, technically excellent and with so much joy. Every coach who likes attractive football strives for that. Of course, I regularly talked with him about that. But most of all, I watched very carefully. His training sessions are a joy to watch."
It's those sessions that are consistently moving City players up to an even higher plane. Ten Hag is already showing he can do it with United, but the challenge is to find even more individual improvement.
Get your hands on our 48-page souvenir United v City FA Cup final print supplement by clicking here.
READ MORE:
