Discussion: Potential Pellegrini Replacements {merged}

[Ray78]

I think it's looking like two options from Txiki's point of view:

1. We go for Sabella for a season with the idea of sticking to our guns of trying to get Pep in 16.

2. We go for Klopp this summer but write off the idea of getting Pep.

Or Sabella succeeds (no guarantees either way) and is given more time and it gives the club time to search alternatives to Guardiola.

 

[FanchesterCity]

Just out of interest, in terms of hierarchy, is it your view that Pellegrini reports to Begiristain or Soriano? I am assuming that Begiristain reports to Soriano directly?

I think we're on the same page here. I don't mind people criticising them for unmet goals in proper context or praising them for met goals. My issue is when people criticise them for things that are nothing to do with them.

I don't know what Soriano's goals were when he was signed up with the expansion of the CFG, the successful completion of the CFA and the new extension, the title last year and the amazing revenue growth then "he's done alright, no need to criticise" is fair if not underrating his performance.

Txiki's job was to take our squad and improve it when judged on a year by year basis as that's what the DoF job actually is when you simplify it. When people say things like "Fucking Txiki, look at De Jong and now we have Fernando!" it irritates me because of the about ten different problems with that idea. With the constantly shifting landscape beneath our feet in terms of player development, you can't just throw away people because they have a bad year or spunk money on people because they've had a good year though you also cannot rely on players who were good three years ago. Oh and you have to buy and sell responsibly with the club's money weighing up that long term cost for the price and do your Cost Benefit Analysis just like anyone else.

My problem here is that on a talent level our squad is better than last year. Our big priority was to get a young centre back who could forge a relationship over a few years with Kompany for number one. Our second priority was to get a right back who could take some pressure off of Zabaleta who was overplayed previously. Our third priority was to get a striker for our fourth choice to allow the "2 for every role" idea in a 2 striker system. Our fourth priority was to get a midfielder if we wanted to switch to a 3 man but could play in a 2 to help create further competition in that area which would in turn allow Milner more flexibility to play on the wings.

We did all of that, and not only did we do it but we did it for under £49m as limited by Financial Fair Play. Mangala provided competition to Demichelis with the idea of a long term replacement so his priority number one was nailed on as done. Sagna came in as a highly experienced right back who could compete with Zabaleta. Job done again. We didn't initially get a striker and this absolutely cost us over the winter period - a bad mark against Txiki which he rectified with the signing of Bony; if people were criticising him for missing a striker in summer then they've absolutely got a point and it was definitely a mistake. Our fourth "it would be nice" priority would be to bulk the centre midfield and make us less reliant on Yaya. We had £12m left after the above (though you could argue we had £37m for both a midfielder and a striker due to the Negredo money that later went on Bony) and we got what we could get with that money which was Fernando - another player who all of the scouts on here said was a midfield enforcer just like what we needed. Again, people looking him up and watching him at Porto weren't wrong and suddenly he's wank, he just hadn't had his performances this year. Oh and we bought in Lampard for nothing aswell.

Overall he had 5 priorities with 2 urgent ones in the long term centre back and backup right back departments. 3 of those priorities fell firmly into the "squad depth" department and we spent very little on them until Bony came available in Jan and we brought in another quality player. The missing priority was the left wing department which wasn't addressed but understandably so as number 5 on the shopping list for the squad when we have been financially limited and were struggling on a quality midfielder for price.

Most would believe this to be an excellent job if we won the league. Unfortunately the performances from the squad this season didn't achieve that which is entirely on the manager. No-one can argue that our squad is not good enough to win the league, the problem was extracting that performance from them. Again, not the Director's fault.

The two black marks against him this season are the lack of striker in summer which I think is fair and the lack of left winger which I think is probably a bit unfair given the restrictions we had. Everything else he has done has been great in terms of addressing problems in the squad.

Too often people confuse form and talent. Txiki's job is to buy talent. Pellers' job is to make them show form. We haven't bought any untalented players, they are all capable Champions League class players. In fact all of them outside of Bony who was the leading goalscorer in the league HAS Champions League experience and quite a lot of it.

This is what I mean when I say about people criticising him for shit that isn't his fault and that he hasn't done.

We have a squad that should be in the top 2 so the manager should be held accountable for how badly we've imploded. Sunday was another fine example of terrible tactics from Pellers. Silva stuck out on the left, Toure playing deep expected to cover ground that he simply can't do anymore and the least talented of the 3 but hardest worker,effectively in the number 10 role. Even at half time he didn't decide to change things. However, Chelsea made miles better signings than us and they've pissed the league. That is not down to Pellers or even much to do with FFP because we've still spent a shitload on average players so it's hardly outrageous that people are daring to question the two Spanish blokes.

Indeed, we can pass the blame to the manager (quite rightly) in some instances, but we've been through three managers now, two of whom were of 'the hierarchy's' choosing. Eventually, if managers keep failing, we have to wonder if we're recruiting the right managers... right?

 

[halfcenturyup]

Makes sense from the football pov, but then he is also responsible, in terms of hierarchy, for the performance of Pellegrini. Doesn't mean he has to go if Pellergini goes, but it's another of your black marks I suppose. So it's not entirely true to say that "talent" and "form" are not under the same responsibility. Also means that Pellegrini was his man, presumably, unless Soriano overruled him, and if this year is seen as a failure and Pellegrini goes, this next appointment (or non-appointment if Pellgrini stays) could be more important for him. Critical even.

Just out of interest, in terms of hierarchy, is it your view that Pellegrini reports to Begiristain or Soriano? I am assuming that Begiristain reports to Soriano directly?

Pellers reports to Begiristain - he runs the entire football department at an executive level

 

[scotty123]

anyone thought of this, if city and Pep have an honorable agreement 'nothing in writing' just an arrangement between the two parties that he's going to show up for the 16/17 season then i don't think our owners would back out ,they don't like shit on there shoes and in there culture its not the thing to do

Another Pep dreamer FFS

 

[sam-caddick]

I think it's looking like two options from Txiki's point of view:

1. We go for Sabella for a season with the idea of sticking to our guns of trying to get Pep in 16.

2. We go for Klopp this summer but write off the idea of getting Pep.

Or Sabella succeeds (no guarantees either way) and is given more time and it gives the club time to search alternatives to Guardiola.

Sabella is a very good tournament coach, tactically astute and a decent man manager, many are writing him off on here because in fact they don't know much about him.

I said today I would prefer Klopp because his football is great to watch but if we appoint Sabella I would be just as happy.

 

[dobobobo]

If you met who you thought was the woman of your dreams...
and she said no before going off to marry another bloke...
then after a couple of years down the line you tried to chat her up again, on the off chance she'd realised her mistake...
and she said 'Come back to me next year and see how I feel then'...

Do you think there might be a chance you're infatuated, and she doesn't give a toss?

I'd say so.

What are you trying to pass off as fact?

What are you inferring as fact?

If I was trying to pass something off as fact, I'd just say so, and not use a metaphor.
I've no idea IF City want Pep
I've no idea WHO we'll get
I don't really come on an internet forum for facts! I'd be staggered if anybody did. There are better sources for that.

Your metaphor sounded a lot like the rumour that City went to Pep when Mancini was still in charge. Pep said yes providing it happened quickly which meant sacking Mancini. City chose not do this for fear of what might happen with sacking Mancini at that point in time. Pep didn't want to wait so it never happened.

If that was what you were referring to, how do you know it actually happene? And, wasn't like you say, made up and passed around on the internet and pubs.

 

[mosssideblue]

anyone thought of this, if city and Pep have an honorable agreement 'nothing in writing' just an arrangement between the two parties that he's going to show up for the 16/17 season then i don't think our owners would back out ,they don't like shit on there shoes and in there culture its not the thing to do

And what happens if he becomes seriously ill and retires from th egame. Too many opportunities for him not to arrive. As others have said, Pep now or forget him

 

[stony]

So are we mostly in agreement that we want Klopp then ?

I want Klopp and so does my wife.

 

[Blue Haze]

Just because Klopp has said he is leaving at the end of the season doesn't mean we have our own candidate lined up already.

Part of Txiki's responsibilities is identifying managerial talent when we need it. That means having a list of candidates. If none are obvious, it means scouring leagues across the world to find one.

It does not mean that we pray for Pep come to save us. Have you ever heard of a major club operating this way? Txiki needs to do his job or we should find someone who has a strategy beyond waiting for Pep.

I am not pinning all my hopes on Guardiola coming after next season. There are alternatives.

Agreed. But now there have been far too many leaks about this waiting for Pep strategy.

This is depressing, actually. I never thought Khaldoon would allow the club to be run like this. This is insanity.

 

[Shiekh.I Khalid Saad]

Klopp to City?

I think it surely now deserves its own thread as he has been confirmed to be leaving Dortmund.
He's my favourite for the job, we need some long term managerial solution with a track record of a achieving success without spending a fortune, furthermore he's a great spotter of young talent.
Hey Klopp, welcome to the best club in England.

 

[mancity1]

Points well made and success at all the levels of the club are taken into account but part of Txiki's tenure rides on the success of the first team and his appointments and the ability of their appointments to achieve their targets which includes playing personnel as well.

All players must have targets , personal ones , collective ones , professional ones.

Targets are movable in fact and sometimes over a smaller portion of time for a variety of reasons but at the end of the day you are measured by those targets ( not goals as they are not targets don't confuse to two because sometimes they overlap and sometimes they are mutually exclusive ).

You can rightly criticise individuals that do not understand the roles and responsibilities of individuals at a organisation and defend them and your view on whether they are the Rolls Royce of DOF 's and CEO in the modern game of football a view which is hard to debate beyond subjective measures or inexact and conflicting boundaries in any case by any objective measure you choose to measure it by if you can find objectivity at all.

You will have trouble arguing your case if your decisions and the decisions based on those decisions fail to meet their targets often enough and fail to meet the expectation of your employers.

Even if Txiki was not solely responsible for our recruitment policy since he joined us in the eyes of his employers it would not necessarily follow that he not be held to account by his employers should that policy fail to meet the standard required.

I think we're on the same page here. I don't mind people criticising them for unmet goals in proper context or praising them for met goals. My issue is when people criticise them for things that are nothing to do with them.

I don't know what Soriano's goals were when he was signed up with the expansion of the CFG, the successful completion of the CFA and the new extension, the title last year and the amazing revenue growth then "he's done alright, no need to criticise" is fair if not underrating his performance.

Txiki's job was to take our squad and improve it when judged on a year by year basis as that's what the DoF job actually is when you simplify it. When people say things like "Fucking Txiki, look at De Jong and now we have Fernando!" it irritates me because of the about ten different problems with that idea. With the constantly shifting landscape beneath our feet in terms of player development, you can't just throw away people because they have a bad year or spunk money on people because they've had a good year though you also cannot rely on players who were good three years ago. Oh and you have to buy and sell responsibly with the club's money weighing up that long term cost for the price and do your Cost Benefit Analysis just like anyone else.

My problem here is that on a talent level our squad is better than last year. Our big priority was to get a young centre back who could forge a relationship over a few years with Kompany for number one. Our second priority was to get a right back who could take some pressure off of Zabaleta who was overplayed previously. Our third priority was to get a striker for our fourth choice to allow the "2 for every role" idea in a 2 striker system. Our fourth priority was to get a midfielder if we wanted to switch to a 3 man but could play in a 2 to help create further competition in that area which would in turn allow Milner more flexibility to play on the wings.

We did all of that, and not only did we do it but we did it for under £49m as limited by Financial Fair Play. Mangala provided competition to Demichelis with the idea of a long term replacement so his priority number one was nailed on as done. Sagna came in as a highly experienced right back who could compete with Zabaleta. Job done again. We didn't initially get a striker and this absolutely cost us over the winter period - a bad mark against Txiki which he rectified with the signing of Bony; if people were criticising him for missing a striker in summer then they've absolutely got a point and it was definitely a mistake. Our fourth "it would be nice" priority would be to bulk the centre midfield and make us less reliant on Yaya. We had £12m left after the above (though you could argue we had £37m for both a midfielder and a striker due to the Negredo money that later went on Bony) and we got what we could get with that money which was Fernando - another player who all of the scouts on here said was a midfield enforcer just like what we needed. Again, people looking him up and watching him at Porto weren't wrong and suddenly he's wank, he just hadn't had his performances this year. Oh and we bought in Lampard for nothing aswell.

Overall he had 5 priorities with 2 urgent ones in the long term centre back and backup right back departments. 3 of those priorities fell firmly into the "squad depth" department and we spent very little on them until Bony came available in Jan and we brought in another quality player. The missing priority was the left wing department which wasn't addressed but understandably so as number 5 on the shopping list for the squad when we have been financially limited and were struggling on a quality midfielder for price.

Most would believe this to be an excellent job if we won the league. Unfortunately the performances from the squad this season didn't achieve that which is entirely on the manager. No-one can argue that our squad is not good enough to win the league, the problem was extracting that performance from them. Again, not the Director's fault.

The two black marks against him this season are the lack of striker in summer which I think is fair and the lack of left winger which I think is probably a bit unfair given the restrictions we had. Everything else he has done has been great in terms of addressing problems in the squad.

Too often people confuse form and talent. Txiki's job is to buy talent. Pellers' job is to make them show form. We haven't bought any untalented players, they are all capable Champions League class players. In fact all of them outside of Bony who was the leading goalscorer in the league HAS Champions League experience and quite a lot of it.

This is what I mean when I say about people criticising him for shit that isn't his fault and that he hasn't done.

great sensible post.... But it goes totally against the general feeling that the 2 Barca c**ts have fucked City up big time

I agree damo is spot on regarding the thrust of his contentions although he shouldn't vent his spleen so much on individuals who fail to come to grips with his premise on roles and responsibilities.

You waste energy debating with people who come from a different and ill informed premise to that which is the case.

The real debate is whether MP an appointment that Txiki was involved with is the right man to take us into 2015-2016 and beyond given the season we have had.

The argument in part seems to hinge on results and entertainment level of our football this year and more so from Jan 1 onwards vis s vis the milage gained from two titles in his first season and balancing the credits of that year v any credits and debits this year.

Notwithstanding loyalty friendship an a wish to ride bumps I am a big believer in deciding these decisions on two factors both of which are part objective and subjective.

Is this man capable of improving the performance level and results of the team going forward.

Is their someone else available that can achieve that with fewer resources and lesser need to rebuild the squad.

If two out weighs one I am all for replacing MP and its a no brainer that notwitstanding the above most would,

if two is not viable then you have to look at one and one alone and make a subjective decision after consulting the key leaders in your squad and other key stakeholders.

I think personally MP is line ball on one given his approach , his abilities and his support staff and as such he has to go.

As for Txiki despite the issues addressed which I agree damo has put forward with conviction and accuracy he has this summer to make the necessary changes to make us better prepared for Europe and domestically longer term as we replace the aging squad,

Over the next 6 windows I see only Hart , Kun , Silva maybe Vinny hopefully Mangala remaining so its a big task ahead of him and he cannot afford to falter at the first and most important summer in our history namely the one coming up.

 

[Ray78]

I think it's looking like two options from Txiki's point of view:

1. We go for Sabella for a season with the idea of sticking to our guns of trying to get Pep in 16.

2. We go for Klopp this summer but write off the idea of getting Pep.

Or Sabella succeeds (no guarantees either way) and is given more time and it gives the club time to search alternatives to Guardiola.

Sabella is a very good tournament coach, tactically astute and a decent man manager, many are writing him off on here because in fact they don't know much about him.

I said today I would prefer Klopp because his football is great to watch but if we appoint Sabella I would be just as happy.

We appoint either Klopp or Sabella and we can kiss goodbye to Silva as both managers don't deploy that type of player in their preferred system.

 

[dronefromsector7g]

Re: Klopp to City?

In before merged.

 

[poh]

CITY SIGN HIM UP FUCKING NOW ! ..........................................please

 

[IWasHere]

If Txiki goes I would love the Schalke football director Hans Klippity .... he and Klopp would work well together

His youth players are probably one of the best in the world, good shout

 

[dobobobo]

I think it's looking like two options from Txiki's point of view:

1. We go for Sabella for a season with the idea of sticking to our guns of trying to get Pep in 16.

2. We go for Klopp this summer but write off the idea of getting Pep.

Or Sabella succeeds (no guarantees either way) and is given more time and it gives the club time to search alternatives to Guardiola.

Sabella is a very good tournament coach, tactically astute and a decent man manager, many are writing him off on here because in fact they don't know much about him.

I said today I would prefer Klopp because his football is great to watch but if we appoint Sabella I would be just as happy.

I agree.

 

[bobmcfc]

So are we mostly in agreement that we want Klopp then ?

I want Klopp and so does my wife.

If I had a wife she'd want Klopp too

 

[mancity1]

Re: Klopp to City?

I think it surely now deserves its own thread as he has been confirmed to be leaving Dortmund.
He's my favourite for the job, we need some long term managerial solution with a track record of a achieving success without spending a fortune, furthermore he's a great spotter of young talent.
Hey Klopp, welcome to the best club in England.

I started one having been reliably informed we have already approached him sometime ago but it got pulled.

Maybe this one under a different heading will stay put.

 

[IWasHere]

If he brings Gundogan I'm all for him taking over.

Also we might finally have a manager who fucks of 4-4-fecking 2 for good

What formation does he tend to play?

4231

 

[Shiekh.I Khalid Saad]

Re: Klopp to City?

In before merged.

That mega thread is getting messed up as hell, most of the discussion is about Klopp so why not have a separate thread on him.