Discussion: Txiki Begiristain (2014/15)

[GaudinoMotors]

Txiki bergiristain has wasted millions, the project at city has no direction. The manager is not doing well. From what i can see its only soriano doing a good job. Txiki & pelkegrini out of the front door

You should be banned for that shite!!!

Yeah - he's wasted tens of millions!





only joking

 

[bugsyblue]

Txiki is getting some unfair stick here. There's so many things that need to be taken into consideration when evaluating our transfer policy of the last few years. Firstly, most people have praised our transfers from Hughes up until the end of Mancini's title winning season. However we did waste a lot of money on the likes of Adebayor, Santa Cruz etc. We also very rarely got good value for players leaving. Yes we signed the likes of Silva, Yaya etc but look at other teams spend during this period. Madrid, United, Barca, Bayern etc were much more prudent than they have been in recent years.

The other thing to mention is how we have failed to build after we won the title. Now I forget when Txiki came in, but correct me if Im wrong, didn't we miss out on Sanchez and Hazard under the old regime? We were in for Sanchez before he went to Barca and we were in for Hazard too. Hazard is the most annoying because we can match Chelsea, Barca are Barca.

Imagine a front three of Hazard, Aguero and Sanchez though. Last night would have certainly been different.

What I would like to see happen at City is for us to not move for plan B and C targets if plan A's don't come off. I'd rather keep with what we have and go for bigger targets in the next window than spend on average players. Was Sinclair ever any better than Jonson? Fernado better than Garcia?

 

[BlueDeadHead]

It's a rather simple way of looking at a DoF's performance, purely by going off the number of appearances his signings make.

Just because the DoF brings in players that the manager goes on to use on a regular basis, that doesn't necessarily mean he's doing well, certainly not as black and white as you've alluded to, above.

Let's take Fernando as a case in point: -

Garcia was sold, leaving Pellegrini with next to no true defensive midfield options. DoF brings in Fernando, and that leaves Pellegrini with the decision to either play him, or look to your youth system. Now Fernando may well be a distincly average player, but Pellegrini will no doubt see him as the better option than someone untested kid. Fernando goes on to make 20+ appearances for City, under the guidance of Pellegrini, and according to you that means the DoF has made a successful signing. All that says to me is that you dont really have many other options in defensive midfield, than to play Fernando, so Pellegrini doesn't really have much choice in the matter. It absolutely no way says to me that Fernando can be filed in the "DoF Successful Signings" cabinet.

Now of course it is down to Pellegrini to get the required performances out of the DoF's signings, but it seemingly isn't his job to make the decision on whether he is good enough in the first place. If Pellegrini has a choice between Fernando and an untested kid, he'll choose Fernando (or play others out of position, such as Fernandinho & Yaya Toure last night who are box-to-box / attacking midfielders respectively).

Fernando doesn't play as a defensive midfielder as we mainly play a flat 2 man midfield. His competition is primarily Lampard, Fernandinho, Yaya and Milner. With Nasri, Demichelis, and a couple of other and stranger potentials possible. And then the kids obviously.

Let's flip this around somewhat. If Fernando had played 20 games for City this year, had scored 15 goals, 10 assists and was the most successful tackler in the league would he be a great signing by the DoF? No. Because his performance isn't linked to his successfulness from the DoF point of view, only his ability to be used by the manager to get the best out of the squad. And 20 games across all competitions isn't enough for a "great" signing.

It's certainly not the only criteria that he is judged on but it's the primary one. His job is to provide the manager with players that he thinks are good enough to play. The manager has shown with people like Pozo and Ambrose that he won't just play them because they are the only option - instead moving Milner up front rather than give them game time. If the DoF had bought them two in this year then they'd be a massive failure as a signing.

Here's another example:

Our last Director of Football brought in Scott Sinclair. He had little competition as an out and out wide winger to play on the left and the other midfielders were more outside playmakers than wingers. Should have got 25 games right? That's a bad signing.

Managers have consistently shown that they don't pick players who aren't good enough, and instead move a player who IS good enough into a different position. Fernando has played over 200 games for Porto and won numerous leagues, including being successful in European competitions against high ranking opponents. He's not the best player in the world but in an FFP limited window where we needed to find the best player we could for the price of sale for Jack Rodwell then he's good enough. This isn't some guy from the Championship, he's an experienced footballer who has played well against some really big teams. For £12m we did fine in terms of talent. His form is unacceptable not his talent and that is the manager's problem.

And this is where IMO the discussion is going the wrong direction. WE don't play a flat 2 man midfield. Pellegrini does. Tixki clearly does not want him to. He wants to play a 4-3-3 which does require a player exactly like Fernando.

The DoF makes the menu (formation) and buys the ingredients for that menu (the players). It's up to Pellegrini to make a good meal. If he decides to go off of the menu and still try to cook with the ingredients specifically for that menu then he takes a big risk of cooking up a bunch of shit. That risk worked out for him last season. This season it hasn't. That's not Tixki's fault. It's now Tixki's responsibility to sack him for going off script and hire someone that will play like Tixki wants hime to. If you want to blame Tixki, blame him for hiring a manager that doesn't / refuses to play the style mandated by the DoF.

 

[cibaman]

Txiki is getting some unfair stick here. There's so many things that need to be taken into consideration when evaluating our transfer policy of the last few years. Firstly, most people have praised our transfers from Hughes up until the end of Mancini's title winning season. However we did waste a lot of money on the likes of Adebayor, Santa Cruz etc. We also very rarely got good value for players leaving. Yes we signed the likes of Silva, Yaya etc but look at other teams spend during this period. Madrid, United, Barca, Bayern etc were much more prudent than they have been in recent years.

The other thing to mention is how we have failed to build after we won the title. Now I forget when Txiki came in, but correct me if Im wrong, didn't we miss out on Sanchez and Hazard under the old regime? We were in for Sanchez before he went to Barca and we were in for Hazard too. Hazard is the most annoying because we can match Chelsea, Barca are Barca.

Imagine a front three of Hazard, Aguero and Sanchez though. Last night would have certainly been different.

What I would like to see happen at City is for us to not move for plan B and C targets if plan A's don't come off. I'd rather keep with what we have and go for bigger targets in the next window than spend on average players. Was Sinclair ever any better than Jonson? Fernado better than Garcia?

We went for Aguero after we failed to sign Sanchez, it was a case of one or t'other not both.

During the early years after the takeover we were playing Supermarket Sweep. Signing all any half decent player that would join us. I expected that subsequent signings would be a bit more considered, less hit and miss.

 

[Blue Haze]

Txiki is getting some unfair stick here. There's so many things that need to be taken into consideration when evaluating our transfer policy of the last few years. Firstly, most people have praised our transfers from Hughes up until the end of Mancini's title winning season. However we did waste a lot of money on the likes of Adebayor, Santa Cruz etc. We also very rarely got good value for players leaving. Yes we signed the likes of Silva, Yaya etc but look at other teams spend during this period. Madrid, United, Barca, Bayern etc were much more prudent than they have been in recent years.

The other thing to mention is how we have failed to build after we won the title. Now I forget when Txiki came in, but correct me if Im wrong, didn't we miss out on Sanchez and Hazard under the old regime? We were in for Sanchez before he went to Barca and we were in for Hazard too. Hazard is the most annoying because we can match Chelsea, Barca are Barca.

Imagine a front three of Hazard, Aguero and Sanchez though. Last night would have certainly been different.

What I would like to see happen at City is for us to not move for plan B and C targets if plan A's don't come off. I'd rather keep with what we have and go for bigger targets in the next window than spend on average players. Was Sinclair ever any better than Jonson? Fernado better than Garcia?

Aguero came off because he had a buyout and nobody else was interested. We lost Isco and Sanchez because other clubs just had greater pull. We lost Hazard because he chose Chelsea. Otherwise our squad would be full of quality younger players.

We just can't get those kinds of players outside of unique circumstances like Aguero's.

 

[Cheesy]

None of us know his job description so we can't say exactly what he does day-to-day and what his exact responsibilities are, however I'd have thought the whole idea of having a DoF is to have continuity, thereby ensuring that we don't have to overhaul our squad on a regular basis, nevermind who the manager is or whatver other changes in personnel take place. The fact that we need a glaringly obvious overhaul of our squad this Summer says to me that (at the moment at least) he hasn't done what he's employed to do.

 

[Universidad de Chile]

For me Txiki is just as well responsible as Pelle here in this bad campaign of the team.

So, if at least he don´t go with him, I hope the sacking of Pelle bring some BIG CHANGES in the transfer politics of the club.

Because, I´m sure, that the half of the new players brought this 2 year were not Pelles signs. At least I can imagine Jovetic, Mangala, Fernandinho and Bony weren´t in Pelles list.

Or have someone some better information in regard to that???

 

[BlueAnorak]

None of us know his job description so we can't say exactly what he does day-to-day and what his exact responsibilities are, however I'd have thought the whole idea of having a DoF is to have continuity, thereby ensuring that we don't have to overhaul our squad on a regular basis, nevermind who the manager is or whatver other changes in personnel take place. The fact that we need a glaringly obvious overhaul of our squad this Summer says to me that (at the moment at least) he hasn't done what he's employed to do.

He's the Director of Football - The job description is standard all over Europe.
In 4 transfer windows he has delivered one very good player (Fernandinho), one good impact substitute (Navas)), a spring flower (Negredo) who bloomed and then withered + a load of squad fillers one totally dire player (Fernando) who is the worst player to arrive at the club since the 1990's.
The problem is not all of his making as we haven't bought ONE world class player since Aguero. But he hasn't done anything to address the problem. FFP hasn't helped but surely less buys of better quality + better use of youth players would have been a better use of the money.
This summer he has to address the fundamental problem by replacing YaYa with a world class player, and to purchase 4 additional players, 2 of whom have to be World class and 2 of whom have to be merely very good.

 

[True_Blue69]

Txiki is getting some unfair stick here. There's so many things that need to be taken into consideration when evaluating our transfer policy of the last few years. Firstly, most people have praised our transfers from Hughes up until the end of Mancini's title winning season. However we did waste a lot of money on the likes of Adebayor, Santa Cruz etc. We also very rarely got good value for players leaving. Yes we signed the likes of Silva, Yaya etc but look at other teams spend during this period. Madrid, United, Barca, Bayern etc were much more prudent than they have been in recent years.

The other thing to mention is how we have failed to build after we won the title. Now I forget when Txiki came in, but correct me if Im wrong, didn't we miss out on Sanchez and Hazard under the old regime? We were in for Sanchez before he went to Barca and we were in for Hazard too. Hazard is the most annoying because we can match Chelsea, Barca are Barca.

Imagine a front three of Hazard, Aguero and Sanchez though. Last night would have certainly been different.

What I would like to see happen at City is for us to not move for plan B and C targets if plan A's don't come off. I'd rather keep with what we have and go for bigger targets in the next window than spend on average players. Was Sinclair ever any better than Jonson? Fernado better than Garcia?

Aguero came off because he had a buyout and nobody else was interested. We lost Isco and Sanchez because other clubs just had greater pull. We lost Hazard because he chose Chelsea. Otherwise our squad would be full of quality younger players.

We just can't get those kinds of players outside of unique circumstances like Aguero's.

We missed out on Isco and Snachez to Barca which is true, but to say we 'just can't get those kinds of players' is bollocks. Look at the signings Chelsea, Arsenal and even to a point the rags have made over the past few seasons whilst our signings have been poor.

Hazard, Ozil, Sanchez, Di Maria, Carzola, Fabregas, Costa, Matic, Willian, Oscar, Mata, Van Persie are players these teams have signed, who in my opinion would all sign for us and improve our team.

I'm not trying to say we should have signed all of these players, but even with FFP restrictions and the like for like amount we have spent over this period we should have performed better in the transfer market.

This summer is pivotal for me, cock it up again and we could be set back years.

 

[Universidad de Chile]

Txiki is getting some unfair stick here. There's so many things that need to be taken into consideration when evaluating our transfer policy of the last few years. Firstly, most people have praised our transfers from Hughes up until the end of Mancini's title winning season. However we did waste a lot of money on the likes of Adebayor, Santa Cruz etc. We also very rarely got good value for players leaving. Yes we signed the likes of Silva, Yaya etc but look at other teams spend during this period. Madrid, United, Barca, Bayern etc were much more prudent than they have been in recent years.

The other thing to mention is how we have failed to build after we won the title. Now I forget when Txiki came in, but correct me if Im wrong, didn't we miss out on Sanchez and Hazard under the old regime? We were in for Sanchez before he went to Barca and we were in for Hazard too. Hazard is the most annoying because we can match Chelsea, Barca are Barca.

Imagine a front three of Hazard, Aguero and Sanchez though. Last night would have certainly been different.

What I would like to see happen at City is for us to not move for plan B and C targets if plan A's don't come off. I'd rather keep with what we have and go for bigger targets in the next window than spend on average players. Was Sinclair ever any better than Jonson? Fernado better than Garcia?

Aguero came off because he had a buyout and nobody else was interested. We lost Isco and Sanchez because other clubs just had greater pull. We lost Hazard because he chose Chelsea. Otherwise our squad would be full of quality younger players.

We just can't get those kinds of players outside of unique circumstances like Aguero's.

We missed out on Isco and Sanchez to Barca which is true, but to say we 'just can't get those kinds of players' is bollocks. Look at the signings Chelsea, Arsenal and even to a point the rags have made over the past few seasons whilst our signings have been poor.

Hazard, Ozil, Sanchez, Di Maria, Carzola, Fabregas, Costa, Matic, Willian, Oscar, Mata, Van Persie are players these teams have signed, who in my opinion would all sign for us and improve our team.

I'm not trying to say we should have signed all of these players, but even with FFP restrictions and the like for like amount we have spent over this period we should have performed better in the transfer market.

This summer is pivotal for me, cock it up again and we could be set back years.

I still think this both are a try worth!!! and also this summer... why not???

At least Im 100% sure Pelle wanted always to bring Alexis and lobbed him all the time he could through the press.

This year he just coudnt also despite the FFP restriction, and that before Arsenal showed interest on him.

The same thing with Isco, who I´m consider a more better and consistent player than the likes of Reus a others.

And I think also Pelle would very like to sign some interesting chilean players too. Someone like Vidal or Gary Medel would be nice....