I need help putting a wardrobe together, if can get his agent's number I'd be happy to give the club a tenner for a half hour.
We spent £6m on him according to Wiki as a 19 yo. Factoring in potential fees for loans & sell on, the worst case is maybe £2m exposure. If we make £20m net on Richie, we can have 10 Oulares & still be evens.
Left sided players are at a premium. It's sensible to keep those players before we get in younger and better options. Relatively short extention contracts for Brito and Holobas are financially viable in a business where it could take a few transfer windows to get the right players in. Last season we missed out on Gibbs as well as others and this window there are strong rumours that we are after Masina. Sooner or later we will get the targets we are after but until then we need to keep experienced left sided players.
Joking aside I seriously doubt we recoup 4 million in loan fees for Mr Oulare. I imagine he will be released on a free at the end of his contract. What is the going rate for borrowing an established player like Delofeu?
They do. Rennes fans were in alleged hysterics when we shelled out for Doucoure. It's always going to be a bit hit or miss and I've actually been surprised recently just how many hits, Femenia, Doucoure, Richarlison, Hughes, Chalobah, all reasonably priced 'gambles'.
A fair point and each of those transfers has strengthened the team. I accept that last summer brought a step change in quality but it also can’t be denied we have spent a lot of money on some absolute garbage - I just hope we can afford it! The proof will be in the pudding this summer for me - I don’t expect we can upgrade all the areas of the team we need to in one window. Last year was midfield. I actually think we can get by for another year with the strikers we have if finances dictate that - but the defence absolutely needs better players adding and others cut.
So you believe we’ve been minimising our costs on failures? Zero need for the sarcasm but I’d suggest you take off the rose-tinted glasses first if it’s the route you want to go down. I don’t ask that every signing we make is a rip-roaring success. And I don’t deny that we have made some good signings. But if you choose to ignore the fact we have spent heavy cummalitive amounts on some bizarre signings, I’d say you should look again.
We're not the only ones to waste money in the transfer market. Every team flushes money down the drain on players that don't make the grade
To be fair he says “potential fees for loans and sell on”, not £4m from the loans he’s had so far. It’d be a complete guess but I’d imagine we’ve made maybe £500k-£1m in loan fees so far from him? If he gets his fitness in order and manages to get 10 goals in the Eredivisie or the Belgian League he’ll command a further couple of million as a young player.
Can't see him even being a 10 goal per season striker in a poor league. He's an absolute dud. He's got 2 years left on his contract so unless he has a good year this time around we'll get nothing for him. Unless we play the genius long game and renew his contract of course
He started to show signs of improvement before another injury. If he can’t sort those issues out he’ll never make it at any decent level. He must have something about him as he still gets called up for Belgium u21s and clubs still want him on loan, but it’s not looking good.
He's had surgery again, and will miss pre-season and the first month of the season so we'll be lucky to get him out on loan before the January window. One of the reports I read said he had arthritis in the hip and knee, which really doesn't sound promising for a long career. Hopefully that was a mistranslation as you're right, he did seem to be showing signs of improvement, albeit from a pretty low baseline.
I have a sneaky suspicion that Oulare may come, if not good, then certainly to a decent career somewhere, long term illness notwithstanding. The evidence against is clear, when turning out for the Horns he looks not just a dud, but an actual imposter, like someone who won a competition to be there. And yet for all other clubs and at all levels he had represented Belgium at he has scored. His highlights package, whilst probably all his highlights ever, demonstrates some formidable play. He's an enigma, almost certainly not good enough for us, but may become a decent player elsewhere. And so we may get a few bob back.
Certainly a worry, but it seems unlikely he was in the Hertfordshire damp long enough to set that off and if it was pre-existing surely it would have been picked up?
Completely disagree. I lived in Belgium when he was on loan at Zulte Waregem and had all Belgian games on my TV package. I'd flick on their games to see if Oulare (usually coming on as a late sub) was any good and he is absolutely dreadful. In one of his brief cameos at Watford he jumped to flick a ball on that went about 10 feet over his head, it was astonishing that a professional could misjudge the flight of the ball so badly. Well, every time I saw him as a sub for Zulte, he looked the same, like someone that had never played football before. The kindest you could say was that he was crudely effective at causing mayhem when the ball was pumped into the box. He's 22 now and has never scored more than three league goals in a season, even in the rubbish leagues in Belgium and the Netherlands. He's never scored a goal in a competitive fixture for the Belgian u21s either. He's simply not a footballer. Apparently when Giraldi was asked at an At Our Place event if he ever regretted making a signing, he said only one but refused to say who. I would bet good money he was talking about Oulare.
It's more probable Giraldi was referring to a player that had created problems or been a bit of a drama queen: Andrews, Dyer, Berghuis, Okaka….
Really? I think unless you have a sight of every factor involved in a transfer, rather than just the bit we as fans see, it's impossible to say that with any certainty. Clearly a player signing and then not having an impact for us is a failure in a footballing sense but that shouldn't automatically make Giraldi/the club regret signing them. The player may have been cheap, or known to be a punt, or a there may have been non-football reasons that compromised their ability to perform, or we may have recouped the vast majority of our outlay...etc.
Charlie Rowan on trial with Wally at Torino: https://gianlucadimarzio.com/en/tor...ford-player-charlie-rowan-training-with-squad
So when Italian press got wind that Torino were doing a deal to sign a Watford player, they assumed it was our second most valuable player - but in reality it was a bargain basement peripheral defender from the Academy?...
So, having read all the negative stuff in pages 1-3 of this thread, regarding our poor defence etc, are we any better as pre-season starts? Will Navarro become our new RB? Possibly relegating Janmaat to the bench. Still very much prefer Femenia in the RB role. LB is presumably now covered for with the signing of Masina. Providing he’s up to the task, that’ll leave Holebas out the squad entirely I suspect as we normally have a RB in Janmaat/Femenia who can play at LB if required amongst other more versitile players. Still concerned about our CB’s. Prodl - I have no concerns with. If he stays fit, he’s a very good choice. But I remain unconvinced with Kabesele despite some very good performances at the beginning of last season, while Marrippa just isn’t premier league, as professional as he might be. Keeping him and Kaboul on just for leadership purposes is a poor reason. They should both be freed up. I think it’s also time to get rid of Hoban and Britos. Cathcart worth keeping to see if he can get his old form back, alongside Willmott as a player. That should leave us with a transfer target of at least two. And as we keep getting told, they always have players ready to bring in. I’d still bring in Craig Dawson. Good CB, knows the league well, played in front of Foster for several years, a good professional and leader. Oh, and he’s just put in a transfer request...
I don't agree with you about Kabesele, he was possibly our best CB last season, and I think Mariappa is quite versatile and dependable across the back. Cathcart should stay if he can remain fit, and that goes for Prodl too. I think you are right about Dawson he would probably make a good addition, especially as we have Big Ben back. As for Kaboul he is still a great defender when fit, unfortunately that is a rare occasion these days so he should probably be let go, also it looks like Hoban is not going to make the grade despite his early promise so he should probably go too, along with Britos.
As mentioned in one of the other threads, we were 5th best in the league for shots allowed at goal but had one of the three worst defences for goals conceded. That says to me that our overall system was fine but we were repeatedly let down by individual errors/switching off, as we must've been presenting easier chances to the opposition. If we upgrade Holebas then that will go part way to fixing the problem. Shouldn't underestimate the importance of Chalobah as a defensive screen either, we had three clean sheets in the five games he played at the start of the season. None of our other options are quite as adept at spotting danger so early. Players like Prodl, Britos and Cathcart can all defend in the right system, as shown in Quique's season.
Prodl and Britos are both passed it. Their legs have gone since then and they are liabilities. Kabasele, Cathcart and Kaboul are all decent, but the point is that they're all a level in quality below our midfield. If we can bring in players as good as Doucoure, Pereyra and Deulofeu in midfield then it's baffling and disappointing to have so many centre backs as mediocre as ours. Last season probably every team in the league, other than Swansea and Southampton, had at least one CB who'd get in our team ahead of any of ours. Not a chance we're getting Dawson btw, whoever's suggested that, forget it.
I think Cathcart is our best central defender. Good positioning, reasonable distribution and doesn't panic
