CL is very hard, there will be lot of seasons in next 10 years I guess where we wont even reach QF or SF stage.
thats why when you get very close you need to do as well as you can, because in can take years to reach final again.
absolute no guarantee we have another CL final next 5 years.
Enrique won CL with Barca in 2015. they were pretty strong. they beat City (Pellegrini's), PSG and Bayern (Pep's) to reach the final where they ripped apart a strong Juventus at the time.
who the hell would have said just after their CL win in 2015 that next 7 seasons they gonna play all they will reach in CL is ONE semifinal which they lost.
not saying we wont do better next seven seasons than 1 lost semifinals, as we are structured much better, lot less issues behind the scene than at Barca etc..
of course there are brutal stats like Real Madrid, who were almost doing in CL last couple of years what we did in Carabao last few years ffs.
But go a bit back in history, even Real Madrid, won the the CL in 2002, next time they reached CL final?
2014
12 years without a final for Real.
thats why losing CL final hurts so much, and we did very well to reach the semis this season and we absolutely dominated the tie, had the chances at home and away too to put Real under impossible situation and fluffed those chances and we shit the bad in last 5 minutes.
are we coming back and reaching semis next season and get to the final? maybe, not impossible.
will we not reach CL final in next 5 years? maybe, wouldnt be a huge surprise based on CL records of other top clubs on average.
took Chelsea 9 years to get into another final after they beat Bayern in 2012.
time will tell if these were our best chances to win CL, being in the final vs a Chelsea who finished 20 points behind us in league and then being minutes away from another final vs Real.
It took Pep 5 years to reach SF stage with City after Pellegrini got us into the SFs first time ever in 2016.
imagine someone saying in 2016, no matter if Pep arrives and changes Pellegrini, next 4 times you dont even get to semifinal stage...
would have been laughed off.