Manchester City’s biggest triumph in football was swiftly followed by Txiki Begiristain’s biggest challenge.
The club completed The Treble in 2023, becoming just the second team in English football to do so, and collected their third straight Premier League and first ever Champions League to do so. Pep Guardiola’s first European trophy at the Etihad completed the trophy cabinet for the owners and confirmed City’s status as the best team in Europe.
What followed was, in Begiristain’s words, a bit awful. City’s sporting director quickly found that the biggest stars at the club wanted to cash in on what they had achieved and those who hadn’t been so involved wanted to leave. The Blues would lose Riyad Mahrez, Aymeric Laporte, Ilkay Gundogan and Cole Palmer that summer while the club bent their own policy on contracts to keep Kyle Walker at the club after Bayern Munich had offered him a deal he looked set to take.
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City would go on to claim a fourth straight Premier League title the following summer, although that was the only competition they won and the jury is still out on a number of the signings made in 2023. In the City Studios production Together: 4 in a Row released this week, Begiristain explains the tough spot he found himself in.
“The transfer window was a bit awful – at least for me,” Begiristain said. “After winning the Treble, everyone was confused.
“The protagonists from those trophies were thinking they should get more or new contracts and take the opportunities, and the ones who didn’t play in finals were p***** off and trying to get out from the club.”
