I bought a Man City Club World Cup ticket at short notice - FIFA should make this clear

Manchester City will undoubtedly be hoping the fallout from their Club World Cup escapades this summer isn't too hard felt as they look to re-establish themselves as England's number one club.

Pep Guardiola's side suffered an embarrassing defeat to Saudi Arabian side Al Hilal in the last 16 of the competition, crashing out of the tournament having been among the favourites to win it.

It's perhaps a stark reminder that there's still plenty of work for the City boss to do until the squad are back at their imperious best and, of course, there are mitigating factors at play. The competition has divided opinion across the globe, with fans of teams who aren't participating not paying it a blind bit of notice.

Managers, players and staff have been critical about the additional games added to an already hectic fixture schedule, although Guardiola was pretty relaxed out in Orlando.

Ahead of the game with Al Hilal earlier this week, he said: "I try to relax, enjoy the days here and the good vibes that we have, the competition and we try to win it. The most important thing is to recover and find within ourselves what we were. That's my main target in this tournament.

"I want them to feel that this is our path again to be competitive like we have been in eight of the last nine years. After this, let's see what happens. Let's see what happens after the final. We will rest for the time the Premier League allow us.

"Maybe in November, December or January it will be a disaster, we are exhausted and the World Cup has destroyed us. I don't know, it's the first time in our lives that this has happened. We will see when we come back."

Hindsight will be a wonderful thing, but until then, we won't really know how the competition has