Txiki Begiristain

[domalino]

Regardless of who Txiki buys, he also needs to get better values for players he sells. Nasri should have a market value of £30m, not the £16m he's told everyone he can go for.

Hart is a world class goalkeeper, who's England's number one. He's got to be worth more than the "cut price" £10m. Eliaquim Mangala is worth more than £15m that Valencia won't pay.

This is now a market where Jake Livermore is the subject of £12m bids. We should absolutely be looking at earning decent money for our players.

Begiristain has got decent money for sales, Negredo for £25m was masterful, Jovetic for £14.5m was so much Inter Milan tried to weasel out of it and not buy him, and a year later they're selling him for £10m . £10m for Jack Rodwell who has (this is actually true) not won a game he's played yet for Sunderland. £13m for Javi Garcia was also good business, £9m for Marcos Lopes to go to Monaco, and he's not got in their team yet, 2 seasons later. £8m combined for Seko Fofana and Karim Rekik is more very good business.

Begiristain gets good money when the players he's selling are not over 30 and on prohibitively high wages. Asking him to make huge profits to offload players everyone knows we don't want, and who are sitting on big contracts is impossible.

 

[caseball]

Shouldn't that be the 'committee' has got decent money for them? Seems to be the line.
You have to look at the overall picture. How much has been spent net and what does it all look like right now?
It can go either way. This lot could drag themselves through the rest of the season and win two cups. And we make a load of great cheap signings. Or they could bomb and we can't afford the fees demanded for the players we want. Or something in between.

However I would say the general consensus of even the most bullish posters on here seems to be that the defence overall is a bust to a man. I don't think there is a single one of them that is unanimously considered good enough to go forward with. All 4 full backs - not good enough: all centre backs- not good enough: 2 goalies - not good enough. Talking about for top teams in the Premier League here. Not the gentler continental versions. Even the CB on loan is a hideously expensive flop. Stones is so far nowhere near his pricetag and could turn into a disastrous buy. Has he ever been seen to really rescue a situation? You'd expect the CBs to be the ones who stop counters occasionally. I can't remember him doing it. Maybe I'm wrong. Otamendi is good at times but rushes in; he won't change at his age. Kompany - unless we get a Lazarus-like transformation, he's history unfortunately. Plus his age now works against his future relevance.
Midfield.....starting to look old and tired as well as a bit thin on genuine midfielders who can do the lot and have the game knowledge.
The young players could come up trumps but they might not. Sterling will never score enough because he's not got the conviction in his finishing. Sane...who knows? He has to play first.
IMHO if you were going to build a great team, you wouldn't choose to start from where we're at.

If the manager was happy with what's available, he wouldn't be having public words about it with his mate, the committee. Or was that made-up press bollocks? I can't tell anymore there are so many rumours about everything and everybody these days.

 

[mancity1]

Shouldn't that be the 'committee' has got decent money for them? Seems to be the line.
You have to look at the overall picture. How much has been spent net and what does it all look like right now?
It can go either way. This lot could drag themselves through the rest of the season and win two cups. And we make a load of great cheap signings. Or they could bomb and we can't afford the fees demanded for the players we want. Or something in between.

However I would say the general consensus of even the most bullish posters on here seems to be that the defence overall is a bust to a man. I don't think there is a single one of them that is unanimously considered good enough to go forward with. All 4 full backs - not good enough: all centre backs- not good enough: 2 goalies - not good enough. Talking about for top teams in the Premier League here. Not the gentler continental versions. Even the CB on loan is a hideously expensive flop. Stones is so far nowhere near his pricetag and could turn into a disastrous buy. Has he ever been seen to really rescue a situation? You'd expect the CBs to be the ones who stop counters occasionally. I can't remember him doing it. Maybe I'm wrong. Otamendi is good at times but rushes in; he won't change at his age. Kompany - unless we get a Lazarus-like transformation, he's history unfortunately. Plus his age now works against his future relevance.
Midfield.....starting to look old and tired as well as a bit thin on genuine midfielders who can do the lot and have the game knowledge.
The young players could come up trumps but they might not. Sterling will never score enough because he's not got the conviction in his finishing. Sane...who knows? He has to play first.
IMHO if you were going to build a great team, you wouldn't choose to start from where we're at.

If the manager was happy with what's available, he wouldn't be having public words about it with his mate, the committee. Or was that made-up press bollocks? I can't tell anymore there are so many rumours about everything and everybody these days.

This squad is in need for major overhaul , no matter the manager , no matter the playing style and the ability of a player to adapt or otherwise.

It will take a few windows to get it to where its needed.

The last window still has the jury out on a couple of the younger buys but whether it be injury or ability I very much doubt it will go down as a good one for the club.

Back to the drawing board I am afraid we are miles away from being a side that is feared by anybody let alone the better clubs we need to be competing favourably with.

This can happen and usually does when you want to go from a relegation candidate to a top performer home and in Europe each and every year and you are loyal to players who have given you success in the past and you fail to bring in the right replacements.

We have done well in the past all things considered but have made some big mistakes and now we need the next breed to come in and take over.

It can be done and be done better than before because we should know by now what works and what doesn't and we are fortunate to have the resources to do it and now we need the people on the ground to go out and get future leaders and stalwarts of the club.

 

[caseball]

We certainly cannot afford any more like Bony, Mangala and some of the stopgaps we've been guilty of. There was a valid point that some players have been moved on for decent fees but the conclusion was missing that we've ended up with the ageing high wages that nobody wants to take on. It was a mess to begin with but some of them should have been moved on when they still had value.

 

[mancity1]

We certainly cannot afford any more like Bony, Mangala and some of the stopgaps we've been guilty of. There was a valid point that some players have been moved on for decent fees but the conclusion was missing that we've ended up with the ageing high wages that nobody wants to take on. It was a mess to begin with but some of them should have been moved on when they still had value.

What's been missing are the replacements to improve the squad for both short and longer term ( 5 years say ).

If you argue that Ferny and KDB have been value to date ( Ferny might have one year left with us and needs a suitable replacement ASAP ) and KDB albeit in his second season still goes missing in big games in the premiership far too often for my liking its hard to find anyone else you could say has been of value that has come in the previous 10 windows.

You will always get some that don't work out every club does but our record is not that good and by and large the same old guard we have had to rely on to keep us afloat in the past three seasons and its beyond them now.

Yaya was player of the month most recently which while good that he is still worthy of a start and contributing doesn't say much for the others.

If we start with the same side and set up on Saturday we had better hope that Spurs don't have their shooting boots on because they we get a few more clear chances at goal than the 6 Everton got and managed with ease to put 4 away ala Leicester recently.

 

[YaYa's Left Peg]

If I was Khaldoon, I'd tell him no more net spend for next three years, unless a truly world class player becomes available (the likes of Messi, Griesman, et al). And set a target of getting one youth player into the first team per season - not just in the squad, but a regular member of the first eleven.

Off course, that's never going to happen given that we're unlikely to hamstring a manager that we have been waiting for since 2012. But I'd get the fuckers to earn their corn, pointing to the massive investment in the CFA as food for thought.

 

[caseball]

In these days of ffp rules it's vital to get the values right because you risk not having the reserves to buy when genuine talent is available.

 

[supercity88]

It's easy to slate Txiki but no one will get it 100% right. Crucially his appointment has brought Pep. Otherwise we wouldn't have him. Right now people might be silly enough to think Pep's not looking like he can cut it in the prem, but through his arrival we've acquired Gabriel Jesus, no way he comes without Pep. All the top players in Europe then wake up and think...City, I'd go there if Pep is. Neymar, Messi... both become possible signings because Pep is here. Most top players want to work with him because he's so highly regarded as a coach.

Txiki deserves credit for getting Pep to come, he's got work to do to get the squad right for him but he's also been involved in the purchase of young academy talent and that's in excellent shape which he's also had a hand in.

On here how many transfer links do we see? I've seen so many players get linked and so many fans claim how these players would improve us. Sometimes it doesn't work out even if the player is good enough. For whatever reason they just don't fit in at the club or adjust to the league.

When you look across Europe I don't think there's a huge amount of defensive talent out there. Tottenham have the best central defensive partnership in the league. Chelsea are all about shape, Cahill, Azpilicueta and Luiz are not better than Otamendi, Stones and Kompany individually. Cahill has an error in him, so does Luiz and Azpilicueta though solid so far can be got at. Sometimes players can pull off a formation instantly. Conte has been clever with his tactics because he allows Luiz to step out without leaving a huge gap behind him, there's cover. I never thought Kompany or Zabaleta would become the players they are when they first signed. They played a defensive midfield role and not particularly well.

We've all wanted Isco, who hasn't done much at Real - if he's not good enough for them do we want him? Pogba was seen as crucial to our future... not seen anything to suggest he'll ever reach the heights of Yaya Toure - he's not scoring anywhere near enough goals. Ricardo Rodriguez seems to be another Kolarov, he was wanted by many. The lad Chelsea bought and never played, whose name I can't recall... another full back we felt we should be in for.

It’s clear that we need to adapt. Aleix Garcia should be getting a game over Zabba in the midfield. Zabba is defensive by nature but hasn’t got the energy the likes of Kante etc have and so they’re just waltzed past on a counter attack. If you haven’t got a player with the intelligence of Busquets, you need pace to cover the ground.


Controversial but could we look at Delph in there? He’s got plenty of pace and might be just what we need. He doesn’t need to play football particularly well because we’ve plenty of other players to do the creative work.


Anyway, I’m off on a tangent. My point is though that it’s easy in hindsight to judge the signings we’ve made. Players haven’t been good enough but that’s an issue all clubs have. Andy Carroll, Benteke – mistakes by Liverpool. Torres… didn’t deliver what Chelsea expected. Chelsea – let De Bruyne and Matic go and bought half the world during Mourinho’s first stint not all good. Sidwell, Parker etc. the Rags – Schneiderlin, Rojo (dross), Depay. Spuds have done a decent job overall, but they’re not full of talent. They’ve 13/14 quality players but they don’t have a huge amount of coverage, particularly going forward.

 

[Zin 'messiah' Zimmer]

You said "One Big Summer Window and we'll be pretty much there" I was just countering that we've just had 2 big summer windows and still look miles away, what makes you think the next will be so different? Just throwing money at the cause don't seem to be working.

Do you not think that although the money looks like being excessive at the moment, that when the spine is replaced with 'like for like', we'll see a drastic upsurge in performance. For example, we rely heavily on our wide players currently working back (to much so).. A couple of world class fullbacks and centre mid turns this team in to the best side in the country, there's been glimpses of it already, even with the deficiencies!

 

[pavelsrnicek]

Do you not think that although the money looks like being excessive at the moment, that when the spine is replaced with 'like for like', we'll see a drastic upsurge in performance. For example, we rely heavily on our wide players currently working back (to much so).. A couple of world class fullbacks and centre mid turns this team in to the best side in the country, there's been glimpses of it already, even with the deficiencies!

I agree with this though we need a centre half as well. The only issue is our most important signing is Yaya's successor, not direct replacement, but world class midfielders seem to be very hard to find. If we finally get the full backs and midfielder we need, this City side will take off.