Pep Guardiola’s 6 biggest transfer mistakes as Julian Alvarez shines | OneFootball

The success of Julian Alvarez at Atletico Madrid is making Manchester City’s decision to let him leave seem stranger by the day, but it is not the only transfer blunder of Pep Guardiola’s career.

While Guardiola has not got much wrong in his career, there are more than a few transfers that have not gone to plan.

We’ve picked out the six worst decisions from his career, including examples from his time at Barcelona, Bayern and now City.

6. Dmytro Chygrynskiy

Who? We hear you ask. Well Dmytro Chygrynskiy is a name long forgotten to footballing history but the Ukrainian centre back sits one spot above Thierry Henry in Barcelona’s most expensive signings.

Back in 2009 and after a treble-winning season, Guardiola looked to strengthen his side and did so in the form of Chygrynskiy, an arrival from Shakhtar Donetsk, but it quickly became apparent how out of his depth he was.

With the club struggling to pay wages the following summer, Barcelona opted to sell him for a loss of half what they paid even though Guardiola wanted to keep him.

5. Toni Kroos

There was little Guardiola failed to achieve while at Bayern but the lack of a Champions League win is a blot on his CV.

Perhaps one player who could have got the Munich team over the line is Toni Kroos who Guardiola sanctioned the departure of in one of his rare misjudgements.

Kroos, only 24 and already a key player for his national team, was allowed to leave for €25m to join Madrid.

It is not as if Kroos did not feature for Guardiola and the Catalan boss had expressed a desire for the player to stay but perhaps if he had offered him a more permanent spot in the team, that would have convinced the player to stick around.

In the end, Kroos left for Madrid and became an integral figure to their incredible Champions League successes.

4. Kalvin Phillips

In the summer of 2022, Kalvin Phillips was seen as one of England’s best young products having flourished in Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds system.

City swooped in, buying him for £42m in a summer recruitment spree that saw the arrival of Erling Haaland, Stefan Ortega and Julian Alvarez.

But if Phillips worked in Bielsa’s system, he never did in Guardiola’s.

Injuries disrupted his early City career and when the player returned from the mid-season 2022 World Cup, Guardiola publicly said he was “overweight” and “not in the condition to do training sessions and to play.”

Guardiola apologised for his comments but it was symbolic of a breakdown in relationship between player and manager and from there, Phillips’ minutes only decreased.

He played just four league games in 2023-24 before being loaned to West Ham, one Hammers fans would sooner forget. Loans at Ipswich and now Sheffield United have failed to reignite his career.

3. Cole Palmer

Sanctioning the departure of an academy graduate only for him to win Premier League Young Player of the Season at another club has got to sting, even if you do have the CV of Guardiola.

The departure of Cole Palmer to Chelsea looks a monumental error in judgement from both club and manager and even if Chelsea were willing to part with £40m for a then unproven 21-year-old, City have enough money to turn that down.

And even if Palmer’s form has dipped in the last 12 months, there is still a more than reasonable suggestion he would walk into the City team now, especially given the form of Phil Foden.

Signing him back now would cost a lot more than the £40m they got for him and there’s even suggestions he could go to United.

2. Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Swap deals aren’t really a thing anymore but arguably the most notable example of them all came under Guardiola’s watch.

In 2009, Guardiola had his eye on Inter striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic who had just scored 25 goals in 35 Serie A matches.

Problem was, Inter were not willing to let their man go for cheap and so the negotiations arrived at a cost of £35m plus a 28-year-old Samuel Eto’o.

Even without context, the decision to let a peak Eto’o go seems a bizarre one and he was just two goals behind Lionel Messi that season. He was also a striker who would do the physical work much more than Ibrahimovic would do and the Swede’s arrival came at a time when Guardiola decided to deploy Messi centrally rather than out wide.

That left Ibrahimovic with no obvious place in the team and to make matters worse, his personality could hardly have clashed more with Guardiola and the Barcelona dressing room.

Ibrahimovic hated the way the Barcelona squad hung on Guardiola’s every word and he left just a year later, going back to the San Siro but this time with Milan.

1. Julian Alvarez

If his performance against Barcelona in the Champions League this week is anything to go by, City have dropped an almighty clanger by allowing Julian Alvarez to depart.

They initially signed him from River Plate back in 2022 and scored nine goals in his first Premier League season.

That number improved to 11 the following year but Alvarez became unsettled at his game time, he played 36 Premier League games that season, but the belief that he was missing out in the big games.

City and Guardiola, who have never been ones to keep players who want away, sanctioned his exit to Atletico for a fee of £81.8m which already looks a bargain.

Since moving to Madrid, Alvarez has become one of the best strikers in the world and one that can score all manner of goals, as his free kick against Barcelona proved.

It was his ninth goal in the Champions League this season and he is on the radar of practically every top club this summer and considering City had to splash out £59m for some attacking depth in Omar Marmoush, letting Alvarez go seems a serious error from Guardiola.