Ferran Soriano & Txiki Begiristain

[SuperBlu]

They agreed to spend +60 million on Mangala and Bony which in my opinion is a big risk.

 

[Damocles]

My biggest problem with Begiristain is the lack of 20-24 year old players City have signed since he took over. City need some youth not squad fillers like Bony and Fernando.

The issue there though is that if we buy 20-24 year old players then our youth players coming through will never be able to displace them. Bringing in 28-30 means that in 2-5 years when all of this talent we've bought from abroad or brought through our Academy is ready, they will be challenging people on the downswing rather than hitting the best form of their life.

There is no guarantee that any of City's youth will develop into 1st team talent. While the likes of Barker, Angelino, Pozo, Denayer, Lopes, Rekik, Iheanacho, etc all look like good players that should contribute to the 1st team in a few years time there is no guarantee. Most of them have never played in a competitive 1st team match yet. If these players don't develop as we all hope in 2-5 years City will have a team full of 30+ year olds that will be fighting for the Europa League. Txiki is either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid to put that much faith in City's academy.

Bojan scored 10 league goals for Barca as a 17 year old. He looked like the next Messi and 7 years later he was sold to fucking Stoke for 2 million euros.

That's all true but in buying the players of that age then we at least give them a chance. We get to find out whether they can sink or swim at first team level before discarding them and then buying in a player who is the 20-25 year old.

It's the better way of handling in. Buy older players whilst you have some talent coming through who could possibly challenge, let them challenge and get a few games then if they aren't of the quality, go out and but the younger players that you're talking of.

 

[flb]

I'd agree with that somewhat.

Begiristain is one of those who is hit and miss at senior level but seems to nail it when it comes to bringing in quality youth. He's a bit weird in that he's generally solid with people like Bony, Fernandinho and Mangala being obviously talented players who are better footballers than their replacements of nobody, Barry and Lescott but every now and again he buys a Fernando. It's only £12m and as a replacement for Rodwell we made money on the exchange but it's a puzzling thing really.

Again, his isn't a role that you judge after 12 months. You judge him after 5 years and then have a look at the long term changes he made to the squad. It's unfortunate but there's no other decent way to judge a DoF

My biggest problem with Begiristain is the lack of 20-24 year old players City have signed since he took over. City need some youth not squad fillers like Bony and Fernando.

The issue there though is that if we buy 20-24 year old players then our youth players coming through will never be able to displace them. Bringing in 28-30 means that in 2-5 years when all of this talent we've bought from abroad or brought through our Academy is ready, they will be challenging people on the downswing rather than hitting the best form of their life.[/quote


So it looks like then that for the next 3 to 4 years then we will buying the expensive finished article in the hope that our EDS lads can step upto the plate for first team football in 4 years time, in the mean time Aguero will have got pissed off with the " Vision" Silva will be 34 and we will have a team filled with 30 something year olds.

We absolutely should be out there buying the best 20-24 year olds, at least we will get 7 or 8 seasons out of them and not 2-3 like Demi, Navas, Fernandinho etc.

Txiki is taking one big gamble if that's how he sees it all panning out, first and foremost we should have a first team squad that has some quality top drawer young players in it ,there should be an element of EDS players in the squad now if you want my opinion, play them in the domestics and give them a run out in games we are three or four in front.How these lads will progress when twats like Kolorov and Dzeko are given tasty new contracts God only knows.

 

[kunaguero10]

I'd agree with that somewhat.

Begiristain is one of those who is hit and miss at senior level but seems to nail it when it comes to bringing in quality youth. He's a bit weird in that he's generally solid with people like Bony, Fernandinho and Mangala being obviously talented players who are better footballers than their replacements of nobody, Barry and Lescott but every now and again he buys a Fernando. It's only £12m and as a replacement for Rodwell we made money on the exchange but it's a puzzling thing really.

Again, his isn't a role that you judge after 12 months. You judge him after 5 years and then have a look at the long term changes he made to the squad. It's unfortunate but there's no other decent way to judge a DoF

What?????? Seriously?????

Upgrades on replacements? 40 million Mangala who cant get in the team better than Lescott who in his prime we had best defence in league.

Fernandiniho better than Dejong or Barry of a couple of years ago give me a break!!!!! Burnley wouldnt have waltzed through our midfield challenge free!!!!

And that leaves Bony? Better than one Carlos Tevez?????? Lol

Bony wasn't a replacement for Tevez. Fernandinho wasn't a replacement for De Jong.

Jovetic replaced Tevez as a like for like and De Jong was replaced by Javi Garcia as a like for like.

Bony was a replacement for nobody, or Negredo if you want to get a bit more technical about it. Fernandinho came in to cover the hole left in the squad by Barry, who it was becoming increasingly apparent couldn't play in a 2 man midfield and even struggled a bit in a 3. Everton fans will attest that he's lost quite a bit recently.

Lescott couldn't get into the City team, is 32 and was on one of our old style contracts where we gave people ~£150k a week. You can talk about form and the like and there's an argument there but I imagine everybody would agree that Mangala is a more talented footballer than Lescott by some distance.

Whoever made these judgement calls needs replacing, preferably not like-for-like either!

 

[Daz_Blue]

Garry Cook please........ loved Cookie :)

 

[Damocles]

Whoever made these judgement calls needs replacing, preferably not like-for-like either!

Seem to recall that was Brian Marwood, who I used to have quite the rants about and wanted sacked :-)

 

[Sitka]

The issue there though is that if we buy 20-24 year old players then our youth players coming through will never be able to displace them. Bringing in 28-30 means that in 2-5 years when all of this talent we've bought from abroad or brought through our Academy is ready, they will be challenging people on the downswing rather than hitting the best form of their life.

There is no guarantee that any of City's youth will develop into 1st team talent. While the likes of Barker, Angelino, Pozo, Denayer, Lopes, Rekik, Iheanacho, etc all look like good players that should contribute to the 1st team in a few years time there is no guarantee. Most of them have never played in a competitive 1st team match yet. If these players don't develop as we all hope in 2-5 years City will have a team full of 30+ year olds that will be fighting for the Europa League. Txiki is either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid to put that much faith in City's academy.

Bojan scored 10 league goals for Barca as a 17 year old. He looked like the next Messi and 7 years later he was sold to fucking Stoke for 2 million euros.

That's all true but in buying the players of that age then we at least give them a chance. We get to find out whether they can sink or swim at first team level before discarding them and then buying in a player who is the 20-25 year old.

It's the better way of handling in. Buy older players whilst you have some talent coming through who could possibly challenge, let them challenge and get a few games then if they aren't of the quality, go out and but the younger players that you're talking of.

You can still give youth a chance whilst buying 20-24 year olds. Between COC, FA Cup, League and UCL City will probably play 45-60 games in a season depending on how far they advance in each competition. There are plenty of games to mix in youth prospects with members of the 1st team.

If City wait and the youth players don't turn out to be 1st team quality, City will have to replace most of 11 over the next few years. That will be incredibly expensive and it will probably hurt their performance on the pitch having to integrate so many new players so quickly.

 

[Damocles]

There is no guarantee that any of City's youth will develop into 1st team talent. While the likes of Barker, Angelino, Pozo, Denayer, Lopes, Rekik, Iheanacho, etc all look like good players that should contribute to the 1st team in a few years time there is no guarantee. Most of them have never played in a competitive 1st team match yet. If these players don't develop as we all hope in 2-5 years City will have a team full of 30+ year olds that will be fighting for the Europa League. Txiki is either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid to put that much faith in City's academy.

Bojan scored 10 league goals for Barca as a 17 year old. He looked like the next Messi and 7 years later he was sold to fucking Stoke for 2 million euros.

That's all true but in buying the players of that age then we at least give them a chance. We get to find out whether they can sink or swim at first team level before discarding them and then buying in a player who is the 20-25 year old.

It's the better way of handling in. Buy older players whilst you have some talent coming through who could possibly challenge, let them challenge and get a few games then if they aren't of the quality, go out and but the younger players that you're talking of.

You can still give youth a chance whilst buying 20-24 year olds. Between COC, FA Cup, League and UCL City will probably play 45-60 games in a season depending on how far they advance in each competition. There are plenty of games to mix in youth prospects with members of the 1st team.

If City wait and the youth players don't turn out to be 1st team quality, City will have to replace most of 11 over the next few years. That will be incredibly expensive and it will probably hurt their performance on the pitch having to integrate so many new players so quickly.

True. I think we can see that there are benefits and drawbacks of both ways of doing it. Begiristain seems to want to do it in his way though, and hopefully over the next few years we will see more players from the youth integrated into the squad which will help with that enthusiasm and some of our older players replaced like-for-like by quality from outside. We are severely lacking a club trained element to our squad and it cannot hurt to put some faith in them if we want this conveyor belt of talent to get running.

Giving them a pretty important place in the 25 rather than 4th choice or whatever could show the rest of them that we will prioritise their development over spending and give them that extra motivation to develop.

 

[Sitka]

True. I think we can see that there are benefits and drawbacks of both ways of doing it. Begiristain seems to want to do it in his way though, and hopefully over the next few years we will see more players from the youth integrated into the squad which will help with that enthusiasm and some of our older players replaced like-for-like by quality from outside. We are severely lacking a club trained element to our squad and it cannot hurt to put some faith in them if we want this conveyor belt of talent to get running.

Giving them a pretty important place in the 25 rather than 4th choice or whatever could show the rest of them that we will prioritise their development over spending and give them that extra motivation to develop.

Club trained youth is definitely the cheapest and most sustainable way to continually develop talent and with the CFA City seem to be prioritizing it but for a world class team that City aspire to be, It is hard to see more than 8 or so youth players making an impact with the 1st team.

I think that Txiki's time with Barca and their success with youth during his reign might be clouding his judgement as to the impact of the CFA on the first team. It is unlikely that a youth academy will ever again produce the likes of Valdes, Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Busquets, and Pedro all at the same time.

 

[bitsmith]

Truth is Txiki had not delivered yet except maybe in selling department, guess the previous one wouldn't get nowhere near money for Negredo, Rodwell or Garcia. His buys are hit and miss and he bought some pretty expensive players.