[SOLD] Pervis Estupinan

A couple of things stand out to me:

1) the stats regarding our wage bill in comparison to the rest of the league is a big part of why we ended up going down. We punched above our weight for longer than most teams of our relative size.

2) the fact our wage bill was one of the lowest makes the huge mistakes we made in recruitment/squad building far more damaging. Spending the money/wages we spent on Dawson, Gray and in the last couple of years you can add Deeney to that list too, was a criminal waste of the resources we had available.

3) The likes of Pereyra and Doucoure should have been sold when at peak value. Keeping them, rather than cashing in impacted our ability to bring through younger talent, and hurt us on the field when they were clearly lacking motivation. You can’t sell the club as a stepping stone, and then stop players stepping up. You can’t sell the club as a stepping stone and fail to maintain a proper pipeline of talent to replace those we sell.

4) Genuinely think the progress of Suarez and Estupinan shocked them and they hadn’t really foreseen those two being good enough to contribute beyond the commodity trading we do with the long list of random players loaned out for years. I’d point to the difference in the way the club publicized Cucho previously, but don’t recall the others being mentioned by the club until this season. It feels as though more effort was made to give Cucho the impression of a future at the club. Maybe more was done behind the scenes to map out a future at Watford for the other two, but I’m not sure. I think their rise was unexpected and now we are paying the price for failing to treat them as players we were planning on counting on.

4) Udinese aren’t the same level as the ones who regularly qualified for Europe and developed some top players. We aren’t likely to get the same quality from them this time around.

5) Love a good flounce.

 

In fairness to the Pozzos, they identified Penaranda and Success as good talents and took them to Granada where they did well. It's that next step, developing them into Premier League players for us, which proved beyond them (as much as they have pissed away their chances of being top players, the since they came here, the Pozzos have done nothing to help them)

 

Good points. There have been lots of badly run clubs in the Premier League of late (arguably us included with the insanely high amount of money going on agents and other shady people, the lack of defensive recruitment, or handing out fat contracts to ageing players), but the margins were a lot finer for us. Just to name two examples, Everton and Southampton have been really bad of late by their standards, Southampton even almost went down, but through luck, judgement and money, they've managed to weather that storm and kick on in a way which would have been beyond us.

Definitely agree wrt Doucoure (did Pereyra ever attract major interest? I can't remember), which is easy to say in hindsight, but as a small club, we should have made a lot more money from sales than we have. I think the whole Silva saga muddled us, we drifted away from the stepping stone model and started to dig our heels in more.

Hadn't thought of the South Americans that way, Estupinan was part of a promotion winning Mallorca team, but him playing so well last season must have been a pleasant surprise, and Suarez was very unheralded until last season. We've all known about Cucho for a few years though, although that might all be immaterial soon

What's actually happened with Udinese? How come they aren't still regular European contenders? Was it simply that they're a small team who punched above their weight? Or was it that by the time the Pozzos took us under their wing, they simply neglected them? Granada are out of the system too, which is one less 'resource' to tap into

 

Great points. Not sure I agree entirely with 1) or 2), though.
1) I think sustained overachievement of the wage bill is possible but certainly requires less margin for error. I’m fairly certain that Burnley have a lower wage bill than we do but (primarily due to Sean Dyche) they haven’t really looked at risk of relegation over the last few season. Bournemouth has a wage bill significantly larger than ours but were also relegated. I think that last season’s failure was primarily due to picking the wrong managers rather than squad building issues, though the Club made a huge error in not bringing in a CB upgrade (and maybe an extra LB too).

2) Again, I’m in agreement that a lower wage bill leaves less margin for error, and the examples you list are bang on. But having a lower wage bill should also make it easier for us to effectively manage the transition to the Championship and be competitive here. We now have more margin for error than we would have done had we had a larger wage bill.

A higher wage bill than sustainable in the Championship can be a total shitshow; just look at Sunderland when they went down (shown very clearly in the Netflix doc). In contrast, look at Norwich. Lowest wage bill in the Prem last season and they have perhaps the strongest and most settled squad in the league and have only sold one first team player so far, I believe. (Not sure Daniel Farke is up to it but that’s obviously a different issue.)

 

Burnley actually had a higher wage budget I believe, even with a small squad. Not being rude, but you'd imagine it takes a lot of money to convince Premier League players to live up there compared to the London/the South East (though I am fairly sure they have spent a lot less than us in transfer fees, and they have recouped way more than us over the years, so I'm not pretending they're super rich or anything!)

 

Huh. You’re right. 2018-19 accounts - Watford:£84m wage bill; Burnley: £87m.

Its in an interesting point you raise about quality of life. I think Burnley get a lot of stick from some for their supposed preference for unfashionable British players (Brexit Burnley etc) but I wonder if they’re just able to attract a higher quality of domestic player (who may have family in the North or reasonably nearby in the Midlands) than they are foreign players.

 

@LouOrns Everyone is a bit negative now following relegation, losing some of our better players and financial challenges. Some are more vocal and paranoid than others that’s all. Don’t leave the forum because some posters opinions can’t be turned by facts. We are all a bit stubborn In our views. I think the Pozzos are poor at communicating which doesn’t help but I completely agree they are pretty good at getting the best price for transfers in and out and running a tight ship. I don’t think they considered that we could be relegated which was a mistake. We don’t know the current cashflow projections and aren’t involved in the negotiations but I’m 100% confident they are doing what they need to do financially to keep the club solvent and leave the best playing squad they can given the circumstances.

 

Trouble is this is pretty much pure hindsight Luke. I don't remember anyone saying it at the time. In fact it was seen as a mark in the sand to demonstrate how far we'd come from being little old Watford that we could pick and choose which bids to accept and force key players to stay.

 

And what have you ever proved other than that relentless negativity tends to make people miserable ? At least LouOrns provided some information to back up his argument. Sometimes you make valid points but a little more balanced perspective would really be welcome everyone now and then.

The facts are there that the Pozzos have been good for WFC and provided more good than bad times and much of that has been based on sound financial management. It’s pretty obvious.

 

As you know I think Gray is a joke of a footballer but he will get my full backing. Him being our number one striker may be the push he needs. Even I saw a little promise in the Spurs match.

 

Wow, came on here this morning expecting an update on the thread title Estupinan, not pages of ...

 

What about quality of whippets?

 

With this and what others are claiming that we are selling players to avoid administration after 5 consecutive PL years. Far from an elite negotiator, if he was a former dentist with a propensity for red hard hats, we'd all be out with the torches and pick forks.

 

Happy €15m in the debt paying off war chest day everyone!

HMS Piss the Debt sails again

 

And 20-25% according to this:

https://twitter.com/juliovacacela/status/1305374554903269376?s=19

 

He gets what he wants
He gets what he wants
That Gino Pozzo
He gets the sell on percentage he wants

 

Estupinan looked pretty good the season before last when he was playing in the second tier, and if I recall correctly at the time he thought he was going to join Watford for pre-season. Instead we just shipped him back out on a two year loan without even looking at him and then tried to renew his contract when it was clear he is quality.

I have a bit more sympathy with Suarez as until last season he didn't really do anything to suggest he may become PL quality in the same way someone like Cucho did.

 

Woooah, Gino Pozzo
Woooah, he never gives the youth away
1, 2, 3 or 4 percent sell on
Woooah, Gino Pozzo...

 

I dont disagree that the Pozzos are very good at identifying talent. However, unlike at Udinese in their time at Watford they have been woeful at utilising that skill and integrating and developing those players which makes it all pretty pointless. Quina, Dahlberg, Estupinan, Suarez, Cucho, Lukebakio, Berghuis are examples of failures to me rather than successes.

I'd also be intersted to know how much profit we have made to date from player trading compared to the amount spent on utter dross like Oulare, Zeegelar, Sinclair, Dawson, Pussetto, Mario Suarez, Amrabat, Success, Penaranda etc who were all signed in positions we desperately needed first choice players and were not even close to being up to scratch.

I think there are reasons to criticise the pozzos just as there are reasons to praise them. It is just that at the moment it is a bit negative as we are relegated and all the news coming out is all negative.

 

I'm not sure why you're so unhappy ?
5 years of spending as much or more than we earned to stay in the prem, of course we have to sell many of our better players now to reduce costs and compensate for lost revenues ? Did you expect them to build up a war chest of funds while in the prem by not spending on the likes of GD/Sarr to try to compensate for when we were relegated ? Then we wouldn't need to sell the likes of those players but wouldn't have owned them in the first place. The situation has just been made 10x worse by the fact that the market is so quiet as clubs are sitting on their cash due to the uncertainty.

 

I'll see your £5.20 and I'll chuck a multipack of quavers into the mix.

 

Why is everyone suddenly taking pretty much anything on Twitter as being factual?

Have they never been on Twitter?

 

Doesn’t Paco Alcacer play for Villarreal?

This loan pact we have with them is getting silly. They will have all our best players.

 

I hear a Stanmore businessman might be persuaded to chip in

 

I think with Norwich they were unprepared to spend big when got into premier league but as a result they came straight back down again. They will be helped in championship by fact most of their squad was there before so not so many pre madona's seeking to jump ship, similarly Bournemouth still have a core from their lower league days

Think we over achieved in the premier league , Pozzo's sadly for all their acumen don't have the wealth of other owners in the Premier League.

 

Please stay around, there are a mixture of negative and positive posters on here and its always good to get a mixture of views. The blocking feature is a useful tool on this forum.

 

Interesting post from louorns

How is Murray only on £7.5k a week though?! Would surely mean Brighton are still picking up something like 75% of his wages?

 

Anyone other than him please he would Bury us quicker than you could say hand over the keys! stay safe

 

Louhorns says:- we’ve got relegation release clauses in 80% of players contracts. The players not training are the ones who haven’t got it and will leave. Interesting

 

Who are the ones not training? Looked like Capoue, Pereyra and Welbeck were in training but not with the main group. Besides them who isn’t training that can’t reasonably be excused by injury?

 

Is that the "not fit to play" - Capoue, Deeney, Welbeck and Pereyra? Or are Dawson and others on that list?

 

Capoue, Pereyra, Welbeck, Deulofeu etc all moved to us from big clubs and could play / have played for bigger sides so I can see they had the leverage to demand the relegation clause.

Dawson came to us as a squad player from a relegated side so I bloody hope he hasn't, although god knows what Pozzo/Giraldi are thinking when it comes to defenders.

 

They need to keep up their base fitness so they can go straight into their new team like Doucoure did. Rather than needing the usual 6 weeks to be ready like they do with us.

 

It can't be all 17 or the 80% doesn't add up.

I think it's reasonable though to assume we won't have negotiated many relegation clauses in the last couple of years. Nothing gives that vibrant, ambitious, best of the rest, established Premier League vibe like a relegation wage reduction clause.

 

17 not playing, think its only Capoue, Deeney, Welbeck and Pereyra not training.