Discussion: Txiki Begiristain (2014/15)

[Damocles]

Look at the Barca bench tonight. I bet they cost, in fees and wages, a tiny amount compared to ours. Barca do OK.

Need more 'marque' players in the team. If that means less expensive players in the rest of the squad, fine.

Bravo, Xavi, Pedro, Rafinha, Bartra, Sergi Roberto, Adriano.

vs

Caballero, Zabaleta, Fernando, Dzeko, Bony, Jesus Navas, Lampard.

Actually I'd guess that our wages are probably lower there.

 

[sam-caddick]

I know he isn't faultless but what about some of our scouts? They will recommend these players to Txiki and assess their quality and how well they'd fit in. Like I doubt Txiki watched Mangala every week, that'd be Rob Newman's job and he'd make the recommendation with Txiki and the club putting trust in his dossiers.

It all comes down to the person in charge, even in 2010-2011 we scouted both Moutinho and Verratti. Di Maria was offered to us but we bought Navas, we opted in favour of Jovetic when we could have bought Eriksen.

Vietto last summer was another one of the top of my head.

The big one is Pogba, Mancini even confirmed our interest but something happened and it didn't get followed up.

Shocking stuff.

 

[BringBackSwales]

strikes me as clueless, and probably just got lucky being around Barcelona at the time their academy produced an amazing group of players - the player recruitment in his time at City has been shockingly awful

 

[Silva_Spell]

Look at the Barca bench tonight. I bet they cost, in fees and wages, a tiny amount compared to ours. Barca do OK.

Need more 'marque' players in the team. If that means less expensive players in the rest of the squad, fine.

Bravo, Xavi, Pedro, Rafinha, Bartra, Sergi Roberto, Adriano.

vs

Caballero, Zabaleta, Fernando, Dzeko, Bony, Jesus Navas, Lampard.

Actually I'd guess that our wages are probably lower there.

With the exception of Xavi I doubt any of the others are on over 60k p/w. Few of them are probably on closer to 30k

Ours are probably around
40k 90k 70k 120k 100k 75k 150k

 

[bluechampion7891]

Look at the Barca bench tonight. I bet they cost, in fees and wages, a tiny amount compared to ours. Barca do OK.

Need more 'marque' players in the team. If that means less expensive players in the rest of the squad, fine.

Bravo, Xavi, Pedro, Rafinha, Bartra, Sergi Roberto, Adriano.

vs

Caballero, Zabaleta, Fernando, Dzeko, Bony, Jesus Navas, Lampard.

Actually I'd guess that our wages are probably lower there.

With the exception of Xavi I doubt any of the others are on over 60k p/w. Few of them are probably on closer to 30k

Ours are probably around
40k 90k 70k 120k 100k 75k 150k

5 of those are club trained if I am not mistaken?

that's where our academy needs to bear fruit in the future

 

[robbieh]

The big issue for me is why we spent 50 million on two players who are either

A) Not good enough in the opinion of the manager to play tonight. Mangala, Fernando.

or

b) Are not good enough full stop.

 

[flb]

Bravo, Xavi, Pedro, Rafinha, Bartra, Sergi Roberto, Adriano.

vs

Caballero, Zabaleta, Fernando, Dzeko, Bony, Jesus Navas, Lampard.

Actually I'd guess that our wages are probably lower there.

With the exception of Xavi I doubt any of the others are on over 60k p/w. Few of them are probably on closer to 30k

Ours are probably around
40k 90k 70k 120k 100k 75k 150k

5 of those are club trained if I am not mistaken?

that's where our academy needs to bear fruit in the future

The key to that is a manager who is prepared to put them in the squad to bring them on, loaning them out to clubs who don't play our formation and style of football will destroy there careers before they have started.

I'd love to see some EDS lads given a squad place for next season, blood them in the domestics , pretty certain there wouldn't be the furore of the fans if we get knocked out with some of those lads playing, the club seems to price the domestic competitions realistically price wise so not a lot lost to the average fan.

We really are missing a trick there for me, Txiki really needs to get this right sooner rather than later, some if the EDS lads look ready for the step up for me, Barker, Angelino for starters.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

Every club outside of Manchester United who have won the Champions League in the past 20 years uses the Director of Football model.

Every club outside of Manchester United who has won a league title in the top 5 leagues in the world in the past 15ish years uses the Director of Football model.

Every club who qualified for the knockouts of the Champions League uses the Director of Football model.

I don't know this offhand but could probably check and wouldn't be surprised to learn that every club in the Champions League uses the Director of Football model.

There is no debate in football about this model anywhere apart from in England and even then by an increasingly smaller and smaller number of fans who refuse to accept that the way they know is not the best way.

Criticise whatever you like put suggesting that you're skeptical about the DoF model is exactly like saying that you're skeptical of wing backs. If you say something so massively at odds with all results then you'd better have a decent argument to back it up. Otherwise you just come across as ill-informed about an issue that you're supposed to be debating. How is somebody expected to respect an opinion about the performance of a Director of Football when they have unsubstantiated and frankly bizarre opinions such as a "skepticism" over the entire model?

I agree. Some people also seem to want to change the director of football as often as the manager. But this is a 10 year job, and one or two bad transfer windows shouldn't be enough to see someone sacked, especially when I don't think you can reasonably argue that they were that bad. His remit since he got here has been to reduce the wage bill somewhat (or at least restructure it to be linked to performance) which to my knowledge he has done. And then address weaknesses in the squad, which he has done. Like everyone else, I've been disappointed with the lack of world class signings, but I think you have to look at the limitations he's been working under. But when you look at the players he has signed, they've always been what plenty of fans have been crying out for (long-term partner for Kompany, replacement for Barry, pacey winger, cover for Zabaleta, replacement for Negredo, etc). I think the fact that none of them have set the world on fire yet is simply the fact that he clearly hasn't had the mandate to go out and spend shitloads of money on world class players yet. He's had to address weaknesses in the squad on something of a budget, and I think he's largely found the right players. Obviously you can question the odd signing, but I think he has improved the squad every year, if not the first team. This summer, I'd like to see us look to properly add to the starting 11 with one or two world class signings, and the rumours seem to suggest he's got a licence to do that this year.

Our squad is no better than it was last year. Fernando, Lampard, Sagna, Managala have added nothing to the level of our play.

I'd agree that they haven't improved the first team, but they've either been necessary replacements for leaving players (Fernando, Sagna) or a long term solution (Mangala). Lampard was obviously just an opportunistic signing that has probably already paid for itself. Although I find myself agreeing that there's been a bit too much focus on the squad, and not enough of the first team. But I think a lot of that has been the budget we've been on and the fact that the youngsters aren't quite ready yet.

But people point to individual transfers. What is the transfer record of even the best managers and DOFs in terms of transfers? Every team makes signings that don't work out. I'd say that Txiki's signings so far have all been solid if unspectacular. I don't think there have been any disasters, but I don't think any have set the club on fire either. Hopefully this summer, we'll start to see a great focus on the starting 11.

It's the style of play that concerns me more, one dimensional and found out months ago. Even tonight we tried to play our slow tippy tappy shit first half against the masters of it! It doesn't work anymore yet it looks to me like they will stick at it regardless.

Well one thing that confused me is the choice of Pellegrini, when it was obvious from the first minute that he doesn't play their preferred formation. But that's a clear sign that the manager has freedom to play as he sees fit, and it's obviously not been 4-3-3 with high pressing and quick passing. That's the long-term strategy, designed to make sure we have a production line of players that are experts in playing a particular way when (if) they start breaking into the first team. It's more important in the youth team than the first team at the moment, but they'll start to shift to that style in the coming years. So again, that's not something that you can judge the success or failure of right now, but I think it's clearly a good strategy to get all of the youth teams playing in the style you eventually want the first team to play in.

 

[VOOMER]

Look at the Barca bench tonight. I bet they cost, in fees and wages, a tiny amount compared to ours. Barca do OK.

Need more 'marque' players in the team. If that means less expensive players in the rest of the squad, fine.

Bravo, Xavi, Pedro, Rafinha, Bartra, Sergi Roberto, Adriano.

vs

Caballero, Zabaleta, Fernando, Dzeko, Bony, Jesus Navas, Lampard.

Actually I'd guess that our wages are probably lower there.

I would guess ours are double there's. Only Xavi and Pedro will be on top wages. Wheras.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

We really are missing a trick there for me, Txiki really needs to get this right sooner rather than later, some if the EDS lads look ready for the step up for me, Barker, Angelino for starters.

Byrne looked like a decent player last night until he decided to act like a complete twat after getting sent off. But good range of passing.

The problem is we've got so many senior players that even some of them aren't getting on the bench. So we're having to use the League Cup to give everyone game time, rather than bringing some youngsters in. But in games where we're winning 4-0, we should always be bringing kids on.