Pep Guardiola admits he made a Manchester City transfer mistake back in 2017 | OneFootball

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola believes he may have made a mistake regarding the future of one of his former players at the Etihad Stadium.

City have recently bid farewell to long-serving director of football Txiki Begiristain, who has handed over duties to Hugo Viana over the course of a busy summer of incomings and outgoings at the Etihad Stadium.

Begiristain joined Manchester City as sporting director in 2012 and have overseen the club’s domination of English football under Pep Guardiola – following their earlier success under Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini.

From a prestigious academy to a first-team that have raised and maintained excellence in terms of standards, Begiristain has been an instrumental executive managing the club’s contract renewals and moves in the transfer market over the years.

His replacement, Viana, has been thrown straight into action early into his arrival from Lisbon, orchestrating a major revamp of a first-team squad that fell short of its own standards last season – finishing third in the Premier League, exiting the UEFA Champions League and losing the FA Cup final to Crystal Palace.

City have made seven first-team signings this summer and trimmed their wage bill by sanctioning the permanent and loan departures of several first-team stars, with each of Kevin De Bruyne, Kyle Walker, Ilkay Gundogan and Ederson departing.

A key hallmark of Begiristain’s Manchester City tenure has been shrewd recruitment of lesser known players in the transfer market who have gone on to surpass expectations following their arrival, with City renowned for their reluctance to overpay for key targets in the market.

The swift moving away from their primary targets for financial reasons, identification of value-for-money alternatives and subsequent acquisitions of talents far from the top of most-wanted list across Europe’s best clubs – is an accurate description of Begiristain’s methods of dealing in the transfer market.

Speaking at their city centre restaurant Tast as part of the club’s in-house documentary, ‘A Farewell to Txiki‘, Pep Guardiola, Ferran Soriano and Begiristain himself were tasked with selecting a stand-out signing from the 61-year-old’s tenure as sporting director.

“One I hold a lot of love for is John Stones,” Begiristain first pointed out, before head coach Guardiola said, “I’m going for (Ilkay) Gundogan. Gundo, also because he was great value.

Heading more left-field, the club’s chief executive officer Soriano said: “I’m going to go for a less obvious choice, Jesus Navas. He should have stayed longer with us,” sparking a reaction from Guardiola: “He (Navas) should have finished his contract with us.”

Gundogan was Guardiola’s first signing as Manchester City manager in 2016, joining the Blues from Borussia Dortmund whilst he was recovering from a long-term knee injury. Navas joined City under Pellegrini and spent one season under Guardiola before joining Sevilla on a free transfer in 2017.