Txiki Begiristain

[VOOMER]

I beg to differ, he's exactly the kind of man that you want at united, it'll be comdey gold.

100% agree camel gob's a the man.

 

[Deepest Blue]

Scanning the first 50 pages of this thread, it is difficult to believe this fella has delivered a manager who is a genius, and a football team who are breaking all records.

What a time to be a Blue.
We have class in almost all of the vital positions of the club on the field and off.
The Rags, for example, know they're beat while our current setup is in place and have taken to cannibalise themselves. The Dippers are putting up more of a fight but it may not last.
I trust the suits to put into play as good a succession plan for themselves as for the players and we'll be in safe hands for quite some time.

 

[jimharri]

Still vexed we didn't snare the piano man.


;-)

 

[city saint]

the first ten pages are comedy gold.

 

[Ric]

Intelligence, style and substance - cut from similar cloth to Pep tbh. It's a well known fact that Pep would never have ended up coach at Barcelona, if not City, were it not for another member from Cruyff's dream team. Txiki isn't merely there to sign players but steer the vision of the club from a specific sporting perspective. He knows exactly what he wants and how to get it, being a former teammate of Pep's makes it the perfect & peerless partnership in world football

Even when he was first hired forcing youth coaches at City to provide him detailed reports on every training session to check for content & value to align with the overall vision for the club he was entrusted with before even Pep arrived. The depth at every position that fans are enjoying, credit all goes to Txiki.

Then there's the stealthy & quiet approach to how he conducts transfer business - rarely speaks a word to the media but closes business with great efficiency and knows when to back off when a deal looks poor. Pep gets a lot of credit but the reality is that Txiki is the one who acts on scouting reports. What you read from player recruits, their families and opposing clubs is the charm & soft spoken and professional way in which he approaches transfers. There's no hard sell and no pushing, he sells them on the project and puts them at ease. It's why most of his City transfers have gone almost under the radar

You want to celebrate City's success in this era, look no further than the Basque man

Great post. We’re very fortunate to have a man of his calibre at the helm.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

the first ten pages are comedy gold.

Not really. They’re spot on in many respects.

As we got underway in the 2014-15 season it was clear we needed new full backs on both sides. All four (Kolarov Clichy Zabaleta and Sagna) were past their prime and were not playing well. We won nowt that season, finishing a distant second in the league playing much worse football than the year before but we didn’t address the problem after that season. We were even worse in the league the season after, all four full backs struggled (we did win the League Cup) but we didn’t address the issue then neither.

Pep came in and we still hadn’t addressed the full back issue for his arrival with the same four still struggling.

It was then the following Summer when we finally addressed the three year or six Transfer Window long issue.

Nobody is saying he’s not done a good job overall or that he’s pulled off some fantastic signings. But he’s certainly made mistakes or not addressed glaring issues at times. And in those times people are going to point them out, just like we are with positivity when the fantastic signings are made.

 

[OB1]

Great post. What he has done consistently in my opinion is keep the club away from bidding wars. You can look right back to pretty much all of his signings and we were the only show in town. He obviously does a deal with a player in private on the understanding that the player won't tout himself to anyone else. Then the player/agent sits back and City are just negotiating with one club about a player who has already decided to join. This keeps the fee and wages down, and doesn't have a "knock-on" across the whole squad, and allows City to plan. I'm sure that's why we walked away from deals like Sanchez.

But apart from that the man radiates intelligence, class and decency. It's no wonder he does deals - he's a heavy hitter. He clearly works on handshakes and trust, too, and is a man of his word.

When I hear that Man United are considering Ferdinand as D of F my soul sings. He has none of those qualities whatsoever. He's exactly NOT the kind of man you want closing £100m transactions because he's not bright enough.

Yup. It's a very nice appraisal of Txiki from FCB.

Txiki has had a lot of stick from City supporters and we all know where a lot of that started from and has nothing to do with an objective assessment of his work but from prejudice.

If all Txiki was good for was attracting Pep, that alone would justify his existence at City but he has done a whole lot more than that. Txiki has built the best squad English football has ever seen and done so with a minimum of fuss and whilst actually working to a budget - albeit a sizable one.

Along with Ferran, he has set an approach to how City should play and brought in the best guy in the world to make it real at first team level but the fundamentals will survive after Pep goes. The approach can naturally be traced back to Cryuff but that doesn't matter: it's how it's being executed that does and I am at the point of being in awe of my own football club.

I've not seen very much of Rodri as a player but what I've seen of him so far impresses hugely and he just appears to be a City player i.e a perfect fit. That owes a huge amount to Txiki.

 

[city saint]

Not really. They’re spot on in many respects.

As we got underway in the 2014-15 season it was clear we needed new full backs on both sides. All four (Kolarov Clichy Zabaleta and Sagna) were past their prime and were not playing well. We won nowt that season, finishing a distant second in the league playing much worse football than the year before but we didn’t address the problem after that season. We were even worse in the league the season after, all four full backs struggled (we did win the League Cup) but we didn’t address the issue then neither.

Pep came in and we still hadn’t addressed the full back issue for his arrival with the same four still struggling.

It was then the following Summer when we finally addressed the three year or six Transfer Window long issue.

Nobody is saying he’s not done a good job overall or that he’s pulled off some fantastic signings. But he’s certainly made mistakes or not addressed glaring issues at times. And in those times people are going to point them out, just like we are with positivity when the fantastic signings are made.

i agree with most of your post but I suspect a lot had to do with ffp issues in the early years

 

[BlueRockape]

Hope he doesn't fellow Pep to his next job : (

 

[asahartford1]

Great post. We’re very fortunate to have a man of his calibre at the helm.

Great post: but it does not add up when the previous day he posted(City)," are not bound by financial constraint or losing money like any other club in the World" In reality tiki, and City are.