£16M loaned back and well spent. Had one half decent season in the PL then completely lost the abiliy to play football last season along with the rest of the wasters who are now thankfully out the door.
It was Mark Robson from Spurs. When he signed, we thought we had a decent player being that he came from Spurs, he was bloody awful!! It was my first ever game. Watford v West Brom
That's right thanks I'm getting my Briggs and Connolly mixed up! in fact I don't remember Briggs at all tbh!
Quinn was awful. Briggs was so bad it was painful. Araujo, Hause and Davis all in one season must be a record though - three signings that raised excitement levels and all absolute garbage.
Samba Diakité Alexander Merkel Rafael Romo Victor Ibarbo Matt Briggs per IRB Can think plenty more too
Collins John - Boothroyd seemed desperate to get him for ages. Did Ryan Noble end up at St Albans or was that a different bloke?
Yes x1000 Nowhere near as good as he seemed to think he was, didn’t seem to even remotely try then had the audacity to shush the home fans after they’d had the nerve to point out he was sh*t! Unsurprisingly his career went nowhere, wan*er.
Hause wins hands down all things considered. A shambles of an individual and a shambles not to foresee what may happen. Expensive. Hard to beat.
I thought he was going to be mint, he was banging them in at Prem level just over a year before we signed him, but I didn't follow him closely enough to know he was already crocked. We do seem to have a blind spot when it comes to bringing in crocked loanees...
Ryan Noble 32 years old has been on the books of 19 different clubs only got into double figure appearances with 2 of them! 4 of them including us he didn't make an appearance! 2009–2013 Sunderland 5 (0) 2010 → Watford (loan) 0 (0) 2010 → Derby County (loan) 1 (0) 2012 → Derby County (loan) 2 (0) 2012 → Hartlepool United (loan) 9 (2) 2012 → Hartlepool United (loan) 10 (1) 2013–2014 Burnley 1 (0) 2014 Gateshead 9 (1) 2014 Darlington 1883 4 (0) 2014–2015 Durham City 32 (18) 2015 Sunderland R.C.A. 0 (0) 2015 South Shields 2 (0) 2015–2016 Seaham Red Star 10 (5) 2016 Esh Winning 1 (0) 2016 Whitley Bay 0 (0) 2016 Easington Colliery 0 (0) 2016–2017 Bishop Auckland 2018 Newton Aycliffe 3 (0) 2018–2019 Seaham Red Star 5 (0) 2019 Jarrow 3 (1) 2019–2020 Billingham Synthonia 4 (0) International career 2008 England U17 2 (0) 2010 England U19 6 (1)
Seems like he had a better career after that ! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Robson_(footballer)
You're thinking of Matt Connolly who was a great addition in our Jokanovic promotion season, helped us over the line, similar to Ben Watson Briggs was the guy who was terrible in every game under Zola, then scored a tap in and shushed the Rookery. Did his best to single handedly stop our promotion that season with pathetic weak challenges against Burnley and Leicester in the run in which costs us 2 crucial points in the former and led to the Knockaert penalty in the latter I despised him
All mentions of Mr. JD have been removed from this thread as a mark of respect to his family and friends. Please can we not mention his name in such a thread in the future.
Took me a while but I think the lad who had an accident. I wouldn't say he was close to getting in this list tbh. There's a few that ring a bell but I can't picture them in a Watford shirt. A few I cannot recall at all and a few that make me want to vomit.
Interesting. Certainly something I didn't hear at the time. Of course, "or so he intended at the time" does a LOT of heavy lifting in that sentence. Even if he was paying for it initially, I'll bet he (rightly) stopped after he was fired. Regardless, someone got ripped off!
Okon left before Vialli, if I remember rightly. Not sure it was common knowledge at the time but I remember Oli telling me that season. As I recall it, Watford were absolutely skint by that stage of the season so Vialli pledged to cover Okon's wages in the belief that he might spur them on to an unlikely play-off place. He did so initially but things were going pretty sour at the club well before the end of the season and it was one of a number of differences, shall we say, between Vialli and the club at the end. All water under the bridge now, of course, and although his time as manager was terrible, Vialli was a lovely man, according to many people who knew him well. I only met him once very briefly and he was absolutely charming.
Bobby Svarc wasn't up to much, though he had a good reputation. Don't know what GT saw in him. Wasn't there some Spanish bloke, a few years ago, who nobody ever saw , or was he a permanent signing? Can't remember his name, Siete or something.
Sietes - a permanent signing who never played for us I think. Svarc was an experienced proven scorer at Blackburn coming towards the end of his career. The end came quicker than expected as he suffered a career ending injury after about 40 mins of his Watford debut.
