For Pep Guardiola and Manchester City, they hope to quickly forget about a year at Wembley on Saturday.

12 months ago, in north London, defeating Manchester United 2-1 in the FA Cup final, Guardiola saw the first little sign of potential trouble. At that time, he attributed the surprise result to his own tactical mistakes. But since then, what looks like an isolated incident has grown to the worst season in New York City for nearly a decade.

Guardiola and his players will return to Wembley to face Crystal Palace in another FA Cup final (LIVE, ESPN+ at 11:20 AM ET). Just as Manchester United's failure triggered a sharp drop, hopefully lifting the trophy can ignite the climb to the top of British and European football.

"We didn't fight in the Premier League or the Champions League, which is not good enough for clubs like Manchester City," Erling Haaland said in an interview with ESPN. "We have to end the strong in the Premier League and win the FA Cup. Then, we have to start focusing immediately on next season."

Guardiola made it clear that beating the Palace won't save their season - the Standard is set to be too high for that - but maybe it can provide some momentum ahead of the 2025-26 campaign and fight for the Premier League title back from Liverpool.

Guardiola has somewhat changed his mind about his problems with Manchester United a year ago. He immediately after that he blamed the team struggling with Erik Ten Hag for a poor game plan. He still thinks he made a mistake - especially his instructions on where to attack United - but he also began to think about the fact that during the reign of Manchester City, perhaps the focus did not exist at all.

When asked a few months later, he suggested that everyone be "hangover" after the celebrations to record a fourth consecutive Premier League title. Of course, he wasn't literally, but after watching the game again, his players were too passive in the first half.

With the noise around Manchester United and the future of ten witches, it's almost like Manchester City believe they just need to win. The second half was better, but by then, they had lowered 2-0, which was too late.

Guardiola faces many questions about the players’ motivations after winning the treble in 2023, although they are known for winning the championship again in the next season.

Perhaps this feeling of desire slipping away surprised Guardiola. He has been keen to not talk too much this season, but to propose other reasons, such as damage damage and his own failure, even though it has been raised by multiple players.

"We're not totally hungry," Heyland said. "I'm not good enough. I'm not helpful enough. In the end, we're not good enough."

Ilkay Gündogan told ESPN last month that this emotion happened.

"I feel like in a lot of games around us, maybe sometimes we give tactics too much attention and don't really focus on behavior; our behavior."

"There is this determination, desire, aggressiveness. It's like a simple thing that's part of the game, but sometimes you just want to locate yourself or anything else. You might forget about other things that are a little normal, or at least it should be normal."

It was part of a perfect storm for the city. Everything stood out among the championships in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 championship games, but various factors led to a sluggish result.

The serious injuries suffered by major players like Rodri have been significantly affected. In addition to the Spanish midfielders who won the championship, there are also Ederson, John Stones, Nathan Ake, Ruben Dias, Manuel Akanji, Kevin De Bruen, Jack Grelish, Oscar Grelish, Oscar Bob, Yermi Doku and Haaland - at least missed the game Nino. As for Rodri, it's been seven months.

Guardiola admits he overestimated the ability of aging stars like Kyle Walker, Bernardo Silva, Gündogan, Ederson and De Bruyne.

Juliánálvarez is a willing runner who scores goals per three games on average and goes to Atletico Madrid but is not replaced. Phil Foden, the dominant PFA Premier League player of the year, is exhausted from the euro and still hasn't recovered his pace. He was his first time against Southampton on Saturday, though he could return to the bench against the Palace.

"If you see a lot of players here who have been here for four, five, six years, then this year is incredible," Guardiola said. "That's all about them. Not one.

Guardiola hints that he now believes he has stayed with his tried-and-tested players for too long. Young people like Nico O'Reilly and James McAtee have taken more responsibility and performed better in recent weeks.

The change in Guardiola's tactical plan helped. A midfield box with two deep midfielders, and two internal forwards, with the forward shooter having split people ahead of them, giving City more control in the game. This is what they lack since Rodri was injured in September.

The return of battle and desire is also the best city team. Gündogan told ESPN in April that he noticed a change in mentality since beating Bournemouth in the FA Cup in late March. They have not lost since then.

"We're doing in their position, especially after acknowledging the first one, I think it's really incredible," Gündogan said.

“People tend to, especially in our society, now in football society, they tend to be more honored to a beautiful goal, a beautiful assist or a beautiful action for singles. They no longer attribute to the team, having the right mindset and being there, where, fighting each other, getting close to each other and doing everything together.

"So sometimes you might drift a little bit separate from these things. But, honestly, since the international break in March, I've seen improvements in the field as well since we've returned."

Despite Guardiola's 10 games lasting, Guardiola will score a 2-2 draw at Selhurst Park in December and win 2-2 at Etihad Stadium in April before losing 5-2. Oliver Glasner's side has performed well in the FA Cup semifinals against Aston Villa, and over the past month, the Palace has drawn alongside Arsenal and Nottingham Forest, beating Totterham Hotspur. Eberechi Eze, who has been scouted by City in the past, has scored eight goals for the club and the country in the past 11 games.

Glasner, Eze and Eze and Palace will head to Wembley, who can cause another destructive defeat in the season with enough city ranks. For Guardiola and his players, there is a chance to take the path to recovery.