[RUMOUR] Andre Gray

Discussion in 'The Transfer List' started by domthehornet, Jun 4, 2018.

  1. RookeryDad

    RookeryDad Squad Player

    I also gave up on Tommy Smith 6 months ago.
     
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  2. RookeryDad

    RookeryDad Squad Player

    Exactly.

    Gino will always set conditions so there will always be ‘add ons’.

    The £18m is plainly gross.

    Incredible to believe that AG has satisfied all the conditions.

    Therefore real cost to WFC will substantially less than the headline fee.
     
  3. hornetboy1

    hornetboy1 First Team Captain

    I keep seeing all these invisible add-ons. Why isn't Pereyra's fee talked about in this way or Richarlison's? Why is it so hard to believe Watford paid £18.5m on a dud? It happens. We've made a lot of great signings, but also some bad ones. This was one of the bad ones.
     
  4. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    I don’t think anyone is disputing your side of the story but you also shouldn’t be so clear that’s its correct. No one knows exactly how much we paid or if/what the add-ons are. People are speculating that there are add-on’s because it was reported at the time.

    I tend to go with what the official site said when we bought him. It was a record deal so therefore was a guaranteed payment of more than £13m. I see little point in debating how the other supposed £5.5m is made up considering we spent that much on Dja-Djedje or nearly as much on Zeegelaar. And we look back on that with humour. If we get £14m for him, we are close enough to breaking even on him.
     
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  5. jw-

    jw- Reservist

    Pereyra's fee is usually said to have been 13million pounds, which is inclusive of the add-ons.
     
  6. hornetboy1

    hornetboy1 First Team Captain

    The part I'm questioning is the refusal for fans to accept £18.5m is the fee. Like I said, no other transfer fee has been debated like this. £13m for Pereyra is accepted by fans without questioning it.

    I find it quite strange the reluctance to accept that Watford screwed up with the signing and the size of the fee. We all want to think our deals are smarter than everyone else's, like the Chalobah one. The Gray deal is a bit of a blemish on an otherwise very good track record, where we've spent wisely, or signed a flop but for a relatively low fee. We've not often signed a dud for a record transfer.

    Of course it sounds much better if we tell ourselves it was only £11.5m plus add-ons, which have never been met. I'm not saying this isn't the case, but it's strange that the only place where I see this as accepted fact is on this forum, without a shred of evidence to support it.
     
  7. Otter

    Otter Gambling industry insider

    The fee was £1m and we pay a further £17m if he plays for England
     
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  8. Ray Knight

    Ray Knight First Year Pro

    I don't think anyone questions what you say about the ultimate headline fee of 18.5 million. That has been widely reported but not confirmed by the clubs. However, most of us recall that it was a 'structured' deal. Whether it was an initial 11.5 or 12.5 million etc is pretty unclear. It should be bourne in mind that very few of these deals are complete cash up front transactions. Part payments can be made over 2 or 3 seasons so we probably still need to settle up with Burnley and shift most of any fee received on to them. The net result however is probably that some of the add-ons have not been triggered yet. Trust the Pozzos to keep losses to a minimum as on the transfer front they tend to come up smelling of roses.
     
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  9. Ray Knight

    Ray Knight First Year Pro

    I forgot to add that I agree with you on the crucial point that signing Gray was still a screw-up but if someone is willing to pay 14 million things Won't be too bad.
     
  10. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    Is that true about Pereyra? I don't think anyone has really discussed it in such detail. The Richarlison deal was widely reported in Brazil quoting official sources, so I think we can be happy that fee was what was reported.
     
  11. tonycotonstache

    tonycotonstache Squad Player

    Well they do sign a fair amount of manure.......
     
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  12. lowerrous

    lowerrous First Team

    Can't we send Deeney to Stoke instead?
     
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  13. hornetboy1

    hornetboy1 First Team Captain

    Exactly my point. It wasn't really discussed, as it fitted everyone's idea of it being a good deal for Watford. Pererya is a quality player, signed for a very good price.

    When it comes to Gray, people could see very quickly that he wasn't an £18.5m player, so decided that this must be made up of all sorts of add-ons that would never be activated.

    Whether it has add-ons on not, is irrelevant to the point I'm making. The observation is, everyone is trying to make this Gray deal sound a lot better than it probably was, in all reality.
     
  14. hornetboy1

    hornetboy1 First Team Captain

    Actually I heard the fee was nothing and the add-on was £18.5m only if he scored a World Cup winning goal for Brazil.
     
  15. Otter

    Otter Gambling industry insider

    The point is that can you really name one signing since the Pozzo takeover where the up-front fee and add-ons were released? For example you look at Deeney, we signed him in 2010, there was an upfront amount of about £500k an additional amount that I can't remember when we got promoted and Walsall would get a 15% sell on fee if we sold him.

    Another example, look at Hughes, depending upon where you look we either bought him for £8.5m or £4m. So there's no point in speculating, ever more so with Gray. I suspect that the truth lay somewhere around the £12m-£14m up front with some add-ons but I have no proof.
     
  16. jw-

    jw- Reservist

    http://www.juventus.com/media/nativ...5-2016/comunicato 20082016 pereyra eng[1].pdf
     
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  17. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    It sounds like you've discovered human nature!

    I suppose there's little about the way Gino has done business in recent years to suggest he'd lump the whole lot down up front on a player. Maybe he did in this case and maybe you're right in saying that's why Luke Dowling left a few weeks later.
     
  18. Jumbolina

    Jumbolina First Team

    Meh. If a fee is stated as 18.5m I reckon the default position is that is what it cost unconditionally (whether up front or in instalments) if no other information is available. If add-ons aren’t mentioned then I don’t see why we would assume that 6.5 million of them are in effect.

    We overpaid. Time to move on. I’d still rather keep him than Deeney or Okaka.
     
  19. Jumbolina

    Jumbolina First Team

    And if his resale value is 12 million plus after a wretched season that is still better business than some of that absolute dung we have purchased in recent years.
     
  20. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    I heard the 17m was only payable if he is selected for Stonewall FC.
     
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  21. RookeryDad

    RookeryDad Squad Player

    Did we send ITKJim to Coventry?

    (Hopefully not. Unattractive passive aggression.)
     
  22. RookeryDad

    RookeryDad Squad Player

  23. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    That's because Pereyra is good.
     
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  24. Sahorn

    Sahorn Reservist

    Actually I heard the fee was a guaranteed £18.5m plus undisclosed add-ons which he has partially fulfilled as he was the joint top goal scoring striker at the club from open play.

    Gray could cost £20.5m boom boom
     
  25. Malteser

    Malteser Squad Player

    Agree with this except the 'not often signed a dud for record transfer' bit.

    Ellington, Success (so far) and Gray (so far) were all club record transfers!
     
  26. wfcSinatra

    wfcSinatra Predictor Choker 14/15

    Hearing he's as good as gone this summer
     
  27. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    From whom ? Need some verification before we trust a wolf :)
     
  28. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    I reckon of Gray played a full season as the main striker he’d probably scrape 10 goals and £18m is about par for the course for that sort of return. I think we all think it’s a bad deal because we all expect every Pozzo signing to be a hidden gem and for them to be much better than their transfer fee suggests they would be. I think with Gray we pretty much what we paid for. We paid a lot of money, but relatively young premier league strikers cost an awful lot of money. We'll make a loss on him, but it in the grand scheme of things it will be small.

    Our owners very rarely lose money on transfers, the cheaper duds tend to get loaned out for a few seasons and the loan fees will eventually cover the transfer cost anyway. If they really wanted to with Gray they could easily mitigate the loss by doing the same thing for a few seasons like they did with Vydra, but it’s probably best to cut our losses and just move on.
     
  29. Manatleisure

    Manatleisure Squad Player

    I can picture it now. Our 'best' striker signs for Stoke. And the Pozzo target refuses to join us. Watford board panic and spend 18-20 million on whoever is left. And this forum has another year of moaning.
     
  30. Manatleisure

    Manatleisure Squad Player

    Obvious to me Gray would've reached 10 had he not been dropped when scoring.
     
  31. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    I think so too. Not to mention the fact that if he was om the pitch and Deeney wasn’t he’d also get the chance of taking maybe 5+ penalties a season too.
     
  32. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    Fairly certain Gray wouldn’t have been on penalty duty. Hasn’t really been the penalty taker at any of the clubs he’s been at. Cleverley would have taken them. I imagine Gray would have been a bit down the list.
     
  33. Steve Leo Beleck

    Steve Leo Beleck Squad Player

    Gray scored four penalties for Burnley in their promotion season and two in the a Premier League the season before he joined us.

    https://www.transfermarkt.com/andre-gray/elfmetertore/spieler/120565
     
  34. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    ......only as long as we have a better replacement poised to sign on the dotted line.
     
  35. nascot

    nascot First Team

    I stopped believing that a long time ago.
     
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