Txiki Begiristain | Has left the club after 13 years (pg50)

[GaudinoMotors]

Some gems signed but some right duds. Plus a lot of scary near misses e,g Slabhead, Sanchez ,Cucurella to name but a few.

The misses. We will never know what they'd have been like under Pep.
The convenient mantra on here though, is to say, "dodged a bullet".

 

[Damanino]

January is is big chance to redeem his legacy. two first eleven players + hopefully Echeverri being ready on top of that two for first squad and he is more of a Alvarez-Jesus impact rather than Kayky.

after the treble we really did us no favours in the market. way too comfortable, happy with plan D when plan A wasnt happening, or not even having much of a plan (Gundogan resigning completely out of the blue due to Barca decision to bin him, or lack of Alvarez replacements lined up)

whatever we fail to correct in January it will be left for Viana to rectify. he is in for hell of a job now. from a great position after the treble we will likely be in a bit of a must rebuild and must get it right mode.

 

[eyalluvitt]

I’m sorry but you can’t seriously use an example of not signing elite players because they want to keep Oscar Bobb happy !!! Ffs Txiki sold Cole Palmer ! Bobb might turn out to be a decent City player but he has never been one of the most highest rated players in Europe.

I doubt Bobb will be a regular when he gets fit - selling Palmer is the biggest fuck up of Txikis time at City - will go down as one of the biggest PL tfr fuck ups.

Loaning him to Chelsea for a season would have saved us 100m as he would be very much part of our side when he came back. Hindsight, £40m & all that but he is a top top level premier league player now

 

[Damanino]

to be fair Bobb jumps a level up in skills and soon becomes Messi type of players by each month he is out injured. I dont think thats good idea as it will put incredible pressure on him to when soon he is fit to play. I would be be happy if he delivers a quarter of what Palmer is doing at Chelsea now in terms of G+A. knowing Pep 2-3 mediocre games from Bobb and he might get the McAtee treatment. I have seen stranger things than that.

big big problem is all our rivals have one focal player doing immense in G+A as a creator and as a scorer (Saka, Salah, Palmer) while Foden would be this for us and he has 1 goal and no assist in the PL this season so far. due to being injured a lot and when played he was dogshit. to think Txiki was happy to sell Alvarez who delivered 30 G+A overall in all comps last season without replacement, wow. we will pay the price, no worry.

 

[Keeper!]

Our recruitment has been excellent , everyone signs the odd dud but we get rid of them quickly . The new batch are still settling so too soon to say about them , he has on the whole been fantastic and he brought pep here

"Our recruitment has been excellent "

Disagree, he's made some quality signings and produces some absolute gems in the likes of Jesus, Alvarez and Akanji but he has made some poor signings for big money.

Squad management since the treble season has with hindsight been poor inn the extreme.

The reason? Far too loyal at times, complacent and fear of offending the PL due to the 115 case.

We now need a serious and expensive rebuild and have left Viana with a very difficult job when he should have come into a well oiled machine.

The next two windows will define the club in the coming years, get it wrong and we will be on the outside looking in , in terms of titles.

Tixki overall has done a superb job in the way he has built the footballing side of the club from top to bottom, our scouting is outstanding but some of his first team signings and planning is not as good as it should have been.

 

[Bluesince1979]

Our recruitment has been excellent , everyone signs the odd dud but we get rid of them quickly . The new batch are still settling so too soon to say about them , he has on the whole been fantastic and he brought pep here

Whos the new batch?

 

[Craig]

The misses. We will never know what they'd have been like under Pep.
The convenient mantra on here though, is to say, "dodged a bullet".

We definitely did with Sanchez because his legs went Walker style just before he left Arsenal. Was no lack of effort from him unlike some of the clowns they signed like Pogba

 

[Tevez City]

Not signing Joao Neves & Willian Estevao was a big mistake.

 

[nellyonthewing]

to be fair Bobb jumps a level up in skills and soon becomes Messi type of players by each month he is out injured. I dont think thats good idea as it will put incredible pressure on him to when soon he is fit to play. I would be be happy if he delivers a quarter of what Palmer is doing at Chelsea now in terms of G+A. knowing Pep 2-3 mediocre games from Bobb and he might get the McAtee treatment. I have seen stranger things than that.

big big problem is all our rivals have one focal player doing immense in G+A as a creator and as a scorer (Saka, Salah, Palmer) while Foden would be this for us and he has 1 goal and no assist in the PL this season so far. due to being injured a lot and when played he was dogshit. to think Txiki was happy to sell Alvarez who delivered 30 G+A overall in all comps last season without replacement, wow. we will pay the price, no worry.

The formula appears to be that an injured players ability improves exponentially for every month they don’t play.

 

[Roachy]

"Our recruitment has been excellent "

Disagree, he's made some quality signings and produces some absolute gems in the likes of Jesus, Alvarez and Akanji but he has made some poor signings for big money.

Squad management since the treble season has with hindsight been poor inn the extreme.

The reason? Far too loyal at times, complacent and fear of offending the PL due to the 115 case.

We now need a serious and expensive rebuild and have left Viana with a very difficult job when he should have come into a well oiled machine.

The next two windows will define the club in the coming years, get it wrong and we will be on the outside looking in , in terms of titles.

Tixki overall has done a superb job in the way he has built the footballing side of the club from top to bottom, our scouting is outstanding but some of his first team signings and planning is not as good as it should have been.

Can you elaborate or put some context on "the fear of offending the PL" bit?

 

[Gone for a Burton]

January is is big chance to redeem his legacy. two first eleven players + hopefully Echeverri being ready on top of that two for first squad and he is more of a Alvarez-Jesus impact rather than Kayky.

after the treble we really did us no favours in the market. way too comfortable, happy with plan D when plan A wasnt happening, or not even having much of a plan (Gundogan resigning completely out of the blue due to Barca decision to bin him, or lack of Alvarez replacements lined up)

whatever we fail to correct in January it will be left for Viana to rectify. he is in for hell of a job now. from a great position after the treble we will likely be in a bit of a must rebuild and must get it right mode.

I believe the Alvarez offer came from left field.

He wanted to start games,Alteti agreed and the offer of £81m was remarkable.

Pep says if a player wishes to leave bring an acceptable deal and the club will try and accommodate it.

Gondog was a no fee no brainier.

 

[Keeper!]

Can you elaborate or put some context on "the fear of offending the PL" bit?

Not spending 100s of millions on new players with the inquiry about to start, it's my theory but something does not make sense the way we have dealt in the transfer market the last few windows.

We had players running on empty last season, players constantly injured and our best player Rodri pleading for help.

Selling a 19 goal player who played the second largest number of minutes (Alvarez) at the start of the season and not replacing him was unbelievably stupid.

So I feel we have either been reluctant to spend to make our case look stronger or we have not got "irrefutable evidence", we will find out next year with the verdict and what we do in the transfer window.

 

[crystal_mais]

Our recruitment has been excellent , everyone signs the odd dud but we get rid of them quickly . The new batch are still settling so too soon to say about them , he has on the whole been fantastic and he brought pep here

I'd disagree slightly. Gvardiol & Haaland aside - In my opinion I'm not sure we have recruited well hence we have the problems we have now. They may have just tried to get as much as possible from the group.

 

[Keeper!]

I believe the Alvarez offer came from left field.

He wanted to start games,Alteti agreed and the offer of £81m was remarkable.

Pep says if a player wishes to leave bring an acceptable deal and the club will try and accommodate it.

Gondog was a no fee no brainier.

Alvarez wanted out, rumours his family were not going to get their visa renewed by UKG, who knows, 80m was great but not to replace him was foolish.

54 games and 19 goals, not replaced.

 

[Roachy]

Not spending 100s of millions on new players with the inquiry about to start, it's my theory but something does not make sense the way we have dealt in the transfer market the last few windows.

We had players running on empty last season, players constantly injured and our best player Rodri pleading for help.

Selling a 19 goal player who played the second largest number of minutes (Alvarez) at the start of the season and not replacing him was unbelievably stupid.

It doesn't make sense but I'm not sure offending the PL is it, although the inquiry may be a reason in itself. Something has clearly gone wrong with all sorts of reasons being floated about. The Rodri situation is a real bummer and on its own could maybe have been absorbed by the squad. I can't recall the situation regarding squad size in the summer, so maybe we didn't have room. Players were on existing contracts and were staying. The mental and physical fatigue situation is possibly an issue but not sure if that's to blame for the slump in form we witnessed through Nov. As people have stated it's likely a combination of things and this is where we're at.
It's become clear though, we need reinforcing in several areas. I think even the most conservative amongst us (not me) now realise there's a big overhaul looming.

 

[argyle]

January is is big chance to redeem his legacy. two first eleven players + hopefully Echeverri being ready on top of that two for first squad and he is more of a Alvarez-Jesus impact rather than Kayky.

after the treble we really did us no favours in the market. way too comfortable, happy with plan D when plan A wasnt happening, or not even having much of a plan (Gundogan resigning completely out of the blue due to Barca decision to bin him, or lack of Alvarez replacements lined up)

whatever we fail to correct in January it will be left for Viana to rectify. he is in for hell of a job now. from a great position after the treble we will likely be in a bit of a must rebuild and must get it right mode.

Redeem his legacy?

Quite a bit over the top.

He's part of people at the club who have delivered the best team of the last decade.

 

[Keeper!]

It doesn't make sense but I'm not sure offending the PL is it, although the inquiry may be a reason in itself. Something has clearly gone wrong with all sorts of reasons being floated about. The Rodri situation is a real bummer and on its own could maybe have been absorbed by the squad. I can't recall the situation regarding squad size in the summer, so maybe we didn't have room. Players were on existing contracts and were staying. The mental and physical fatigue situation is possibly an issue but not sure if that's to blame for the slump in form we witnessed through Nov. As people have stated it's likely a combination of things and this is where we're at.
It's become clear though, we need reinforcing in several areas. I think even the most conservative amongst us (not me) now realise there's a big overhaul looming.

A huge refresh is needed maybe upwards of 8 top players in the next 2-3 windows.

If we are in trouble with 115 it could utterly derail us, even if completely cleared on all charges it's going to be a hugely expensive job to rebuild this squad and we can't afford any more errors in terms of signing the likes of Nunes/Phillips.

 

[Prophet of Doom]

Alvarez wanted out, rumours his family were not going to get their visa renewed by UKG, who knows, 80m was great but not to replace him was foolish.

54 games and 19 goals, not replaced.

Losing the goals of Alvarez with no replacement was a huge mistake no matter how much cash we received. Simply not enough goals in the squad to challenge for trophies.

Worse is that Haaland is playing every minute - which is going to end in tears. When he pulls up injured cause of being overplayed we will be really in the shit.

Txiki’s been asleep at the wheel whilst on his 12 month lap of honour.

Lots of mitigating factors but there has been chronic mis-management which won’t be sorted in January.

 

[blueparrot]

Losing the goals of Alvarez with no replacement was a huge mistake no matter how much cash we received. Simply not enough goals in the squad to challenge for trophies.

Worse is that Haaland is playing every minute - which is going to end in tears. When he pulls up injured cause of being overplayed we will be really in the shit.

Txiki’s been asleep at the wheel whilst on his 12 month lap of honour.

Lots of mitigating factors but there has been chronic mis-management which won’t be sorted in January.

A post showing how little you know of the background to last summer and how our club came to their transfer decisions ,of which Txiki was only one part. To be fair I don't full understand it either, but I know Txiki wasn't just left to his own devices, and then at the end of the summer the rest of the club were asking Txiki what happened.

 

[Kippax77]

Losing the goals of Alvarez with no replacement was a huge mistake no matter how much cash we received. Simply not enough goals in the squad to challenge for trophies.

Worse is that Haaland is playing every minute - which is going to end in tears. When he pulls up injured cause of being overplayed we will be really in the shit.

Txiki’s been asleep at the wheel whilst on his 12 month lap of honour.

Lots of mitigating factors but there has been chronic mis-management which won’t be sorted in January.

On the Haaland bit, yes I agree it's crazy not having any cover for him, but players like Messi and Ronaldo scored so many goals and broke so many records because they were always playing in games.
He's quite young and the thrill of scoring lots of goals should outweigh any tiredness.
We just don't need a bad challenge putting him out