The Championship 2020-21

There is £100m in player sales that could clear the bulk of the loans, although it may take some windows to recognise it.

When you only have gates of 20k the only way to compete is a bigger ground and grow the international fan base, things the average Watford supporter seems not to want. Therefore loans it is.

 

Yes. Was wondering whether they would be able to asset strip the club of its remaining saleable assets in 2 yrs time before allowing it to pass into administration. There are laws preventing owners of UK companies from removing cash and assets to the detriment of 3rd parties if the club is insolvent which might prevent them selling players to "repay" Pozzo/Udinese loans ahead of others but I'm not 100% sure on the law.

 

Sorry TUT but your being a bit of a drama queen, how did you jump from relegation to the Pozzos jumping ship and putting Watford into admin?!

 

Just responding to Dom's post.
As said before we have various options at this point given the drop in income and level of debt. Primarily focus on trying to get back up or focus on trying to reduce our cost base to balance the books if we are still in this league in 3 years time. The Pozzos investment is clearly worth a hell of a lot more if we are in the prem so the temptation is to increase the debt to top up the parachute monies and try to get back up. We've seen many smaller clubs that tried this suffer financially if it fails, so i was just speculating what might happen if the Pozzos rolled the dice and it didn't come off, following Dom's post.

 

I see Norwich have just made their 5th recruitment already. Getting in early doors on the free market with two of them. Might have to act soon to get a sniff in!

 

Don't need to. The Pozzo scouting network is the best in the world.

 

I'm looking forward to the pre match reviews getting back to obscure buildings, funny injokes and Cheese puns.

 

Luton architecture

 

A

thousand times this.

 

Interestingly that picture is actually from Bath which is literally the polar opposite of Luton in terms of where I'd want to live - beautiful place, but probably pretty expensive.

 

One thing that hasn't come up, but I think will play a huge role in how Watford do and who gets promoted:

The Championship calendar will be 46 matches from late Sept to early May - in effect, a season six weeks shorter. That means roughly six matches per month, or an average two weeknight matches per month.

Depth of squad will almost certainly be a deciding factor. Having a strong starting XI will be important, but being able to swap players in and out without a drop-off in quality may be even more important.

While we'll inevitably lose some players, I hope Pozzo and Giraldi don't sell these young players who are currently abroad, like Estupinan and Suarez, who could get a good amount of match time and add to our depth. Similarly, there may be a real benefit to bringing back Sema and Navarro. Especially if the new head coach is good at motivating them to fight for a place.

 

More to the point, Giraldi is going to be rushed off his feet with 6 matches a month, he will never find time to micro manage everything! He needs an assistant!

 

Funny you should say that. The club are actively looking for an assistant for Giraldi. His job title will be Head Coach.

 

Retaining Estupinan is a pipe dream, but yeah, we have a large pool of players who we should be able to call upon next season (and that's before we even think about the dead wood who will hopefully leave). Strength in depth was something which definitely ****ed us this season, we had lots of midfielders (some like Quina who were hardly used), a lot of very samey, largely ineffective wingers to replace Geri/Sarr, but very very little in reserve in basically every other position

 

Which one do the teams get changed in before matches?

 

dont agree you can say ineffective wingers, none of them were given a chance.

 

This is how our squad could look like

GK
Foster, new number 2, Dahlberg Out Bachmann

Defence
Janmaat, new LB, Dawson, Cathcart, new CB, Wilmot, Masina, Mariappa, new RB or Estupinan Out Kiko, Kabasele, Navarro, Foulquier

Midfield
Hughes, Quina, Dele-Bashiru, Capoue, Chalobah, Cleverley Out Doucoure, Pereyra

Wingers
Deulofeu, Sarr, Pussetto, Penaranda, Sema

Forwards
Deeney, Welbeck, Suarez, Hernandez, Pedro Out Gray, Success

This is what I would like to see, something like this squad. It would have a nice blend of experience, but plenty of exciting young talent.

We'd have trimmed the squad, but not lost too much quality. We need a big squad as it's a grueling season with 6 matches per month.

We'd raise funds through selling Pereyra & Doucoure. Gray will be good to get off the books on wages alone, plus we'd get fees for the other players also.

I think we could afford this squad (for one season), and we'd still have good players on the books we could retain if we go up, or sell if we don't The club has to keep some assets to sell next season in the worse case scenario. We can't sell everyone at this stage.

We need to follow Fulham's blueprint. Their squad is not as good as ours, but they have retained what they had for a promotion push this season. Their wages is the highest in the division, but it looks like it could pay off. They are 2-0 up in the first leg of their playoff semi-final. They could bounce straight back up. This is what we need to do.

 

May have a chance on keeping a Gerry until fitness proven otherwise he would be gone. Sarr - I am guessing they will loan out. Being in championship will not help their prize asset. A loan to somewhere else more likely and see what his value becomes. If we go back up great - he comes back in but they will not risk his value falling

 

Estupinan is a left-back.

 

He'll be left back in Spain, I suspect.

 

I'm thinking if the board go down the firesale route, what would our squad look like after that, and could we realistically launch a promotion push with it.

GK
Foster, new number 2, Dahlberg Out Bachmann

Defence
Janmaat, new LB, Dawson, Cathcart, new CB, Wilmot, Masina, Mariappa, new RB Out Kiko, Kabasele, Navarro, Foulquier, Estupinan

Midfield
Hughes, Quina, Dele-Bashiru, Chalobah, Cleverley, Whelan Out Doucoure, Pereyra, Capoue,

Wingers
Pussetto, Penaranda, Sema Out Deulofeu, Sarr

Forwards
Deeney, Welbeck, Hernandez, Pedro Out Gray, Success, Suarez

The big ticket transfers would be Sarr, Deulofeu, Doucoure, Capoue, Suarez, Estupinan & Pereyra. Those 7 would bring in a lot of money. It's vital to get Gray off the books also. I'd be gutted to lose Sarr and Deulofeu though, as they could be the difference from going up or not. However, if we did sell all our top players, keeping only Welbeck, Pedro and Hughes as the remaining "stars", then we'd be able to pay off all our debt in one go. Those 7 could easily give us well over £100m in revenue.

But do we think the remaining squad would be strong enough to get promotion?

I think it would do ok, but I'm not sure it would manage top 6. Our standout players would be Pedro, Welbeck and Hughes, maybe Quina you could argue. But that's about it. The rest are mainly functional players. The front line wouldn't be too bad though, but midfield seems a bit light for a condensed 46 match season. The wingers only average. Defence weak, even at Championship level. But adding Wilmot and a decent central defender could change that. But getting a better CB than we already have will be tough as a Championship club.

I think selling those 7 players will be too many, but we may not have a choice. Once players see good players go, they all want out. The club have to get this right, as it's all very well selling top players and getting in a lot of money, but it's a bit pointless if you're left with a fairly average product in return.

Personally, I would like us to keep either Doucoure or Capoue AND Deulofeu or Sarr. I think that would make a big difference. If we could keep Suarez and Estupinan as well, then happy days. I think we'd be strong enough to mount a challenge then.

 

Mental strength will also play a part, and that is a weakness of our squad.

 

I agree, the biggest signing we could make is a good sports psychologist.

Looking at HB's list, I'm not sure anyone would pick up Gray from us. However as a proven Championship striker this could be his chance to shine. Also I'm not sure where Capoue will go, either to France or a lower PL team. When on form he's a very good player and if possible could be the catalyst to promotion if he stays.

As previously said Deulofeu isn't going anywhere until he's fit again, so if we're in the top 2 in January he will stay for the remainder of the season.

 

There are rumours that the club do not want to sell Sarr in this window, which is good news. Bad news is that we may loan him to Udinese for the season. But, even this would still be sensible. If we do go up then we'll need to get good players quickly. Having one on the books already would be perfect.

With regards to Gray, the club would clearly have to take a hit. He's been a noose around our necks from day one. A crazy 5-year deal where we were committed to paying £70k per week for someone we never use. Even in the Championship I have my doubts he'd be any good. His touch, control and finishing will still be appalling, however he'd probably get more chances and even he can score goals if you increase his chances to score.

But we don't need him. Maybe one of the newly promoted clubs would take a chance on him. Leeds, West Brom or Flem/Brentford/Swansea/Cardiff.

 

Gray can't play up front on his own.

If we don't play two up front he's a sub only or might as well sell him.

 

Fabrizio Romano is pretty reliable for transfer news/deals.

He's saying Nathan Ake to Manchester City for €43m (£38.8m). (Press Association reporting £41m).

 

Yeah BBC reporting this now, so must be true as the beeb are usually very cautious about reporting anything.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53594421

 

Just as well we didn't spend silly money like they did on a defender who'd previously been on loan to us.

 

If we'd had Ake I don't think we'd have got relegated

 

Not sure.....who'd have thought a team with the likes of Welbeck, Deulofeu, Sarr, Doucoure, Capoue, Foster in its ranks would have gone down. Bournemouth went down with him. I'm sure we'd still have done also.

 

Maybe, but a £20m profit and £40m cash to strengthen/repay a debt.

 

We'd have made more profit than that. City came in with a £70m bid last season, but Bournemouth for some reason said no. We'd have sold at that price and rightly so. He probably would have gone last season, but we'd have made a huge profit on him.