Some journalist covering Valencia (Hector Gomez) claiming that Gracia hopes Capoue will join them this week. Don’t know if this is actual news or just on a par with me saying I hope De Bruyne decides he’d rather live in Hertfordshire and play in yellow. If his heart isn’t in it then probably for the best. We can’t carry on with 17 unavailable players. I hope we get at least £5m but I don’t know how likely that is from Valencia. It would still be a bargain for them but given his age and desire to leave combined with our finances I don’t know how much we can realistically demand, especially if nobody else is going to offer anything.
I think we're getting the stage where it doesn't really matter anymore. So many players are going, so losing one more makes little difference. We'll be left with a team capable of staying in the Championship, but don't expect anything more.
If you watch the Deeney and Gray preseason video from last season, they describe Capoue as a teacher's pet to Gracia and how much he loves him. This was always on as Capoue likely wants to work with him again. The desperate words from earlier in the thread were just that. I'm more disappointed he's going now as we aren't going to have the likes of Estupinan and Suarez anymore.
The real question will be are we going to bring anyone else in - The depth without the 17 is shockingly bad for a congested season in the Champ.
We're going down the Sam Hutchison, Toby Stevenson, Glenn Murray route or whoever we can get from Udinese. That's the standard and level of the replacements we'll be getting.
Didn't Valencia struggle to stump up £4m for him? Has anything changed in that regard that will make them any more likely to pay that?
I think they’ve sold another midfielder since. But they’d already made about £50m from player sales when they shied away from the £4m price before so I don’t know how much difference one more sale would make.
A bit more meat on the bones in this report https://plazadeportiva.valenciaplaza.com/watford-capoue-fichajes-valencia Basically Gracia is pushing for this deal to be done, Capoue to Valencia. They first asked for a loan with an option, which we refused, then came back with a tempting €2m, but Pozzo wants to do a deal, but is insisting on €8m. Valencia will come back again, but can only go to €4m. I suspect they'll shake hands on that.
I keep logging in every morning expecting to read that this forum has been sold (for a pittance). In a few weeks time, we may be all that’s left.
Valencia media outlets seem to be strengthening their stories again it appears - one even saying they might conclude deals in ‘hours’. Really hope to be wrong but is beginning to look like just a matter of time.
At this point I'd just rather it was completed as opposed to dragging on throughout the window. That will hopefully be the extent of our CM departures (Doucoure & Capoue) and we will hopefully now be able to get two players in as replacements.
Agreed - what is the betting all these unwanted players leave at the last minute in cut price moves or loan deals.
Pffft, we were never gonna get much for him at his age, were we? We'll probably settle for €4m to get him off the wage bill, quality wise he's obviously better than that, but if we're not going to get more for him, what can we do? As good as he and Doucoure have been for us, they are replaceable, Hughes and Cleverley/Sema is fine for this level (jury still out on Chalobah to say the least)
At this point I think it’s just best as many of these deals get concluded quickly and for fair prices.
Yeah, I'd take €4m at this stage, especially if it's up front. Thanks for the memories, but it's important to get the likes of Capoue off the wage bill and bring in players who want to be with us in the Championship
Has he said he wants to leave or is he just open to leaving? As it stands the only two who have openly said they want to leave are Delefeou and Doucoure I believe
...and Pereyra. Having followed our first two matches, unless Capoue really wants to leave then I think it would be madness to let him go. We need someone of his ability in the middle.
Reports in the Spanish media (will dig the link out later) say that he's spoken to Gracia and agreed to take a pay cut but they only want him on loan as they can't afford to buy him.
This arrangement is no use to us. We'd save wages but not be able to fund a replacement, who'd inevitably be worse than Caps. Might as well keep him.
You would really hope for some quick action on the others. My guess is that Capoue would play well for us in the Championship. He’s settled here and has a big wage. Unless he has some hitherto unknown ambition to win something (I mean he joined us after all so it seems unlikely) or to get a pay rise, I think he’d be one of the happiest to stick around.
I also think if the club are serious about keeping Sarr/or trying to, then keeping someone like Etienne around will help. Now Doucoure has gone, I don't think there's too many other french speakers around? I know Richarlison and Pedro have spoken positively about the impact Gomes had on getting them settled, and I don't think Sarr is fluent as yet so keeping some french speakers around will surely help him.
If Sarr is not even on the bench on Saturday, then he's going. They will be keeping him in cotton wool until the deal is finalised.
That’s not necessarily true. It’s most likely he is going, but the embarrassment of selling him for less than we paid is more than the Pozzos could bear. If no one hits that figure he will only go if our situation is so dire that moving on the others hasn’t solved it. He could be in limbo up until deadline day.
Not if he doesn't want to be here. We saw it last season with Doucoure. No point having a talented player if their heart isn't in it.
Hmmm. Up to a point. If he hasn't requested a transfer then talk to the guy and ask him for a season to help us get back up. It is his actual job. Even at 80% he's probably our best midfielder.
I think if he goes, it'll be in the last week/days of the window. They might not risk him until then.
If a proper offer comes in for him, I agree it would be hard to justify refusing it. However, while all that is happening is that Valencia continue to express interest in half of our players while clearly not having the funds to buy any of them I think he should be playing. Capoue's wages would cost us £2.6m for a year. For all the talk of "getting his wages off our books", we are going to struggle to find a player with 10% of Capoue's quality for that price.
And that's the million dollar question. The last we saw of him he was all smiles but nothing since. he might fancy the idea of Valencia but if they can't come up with a deal suitable to us is happy to play for Watford in The Championship? He has always said how much he likes it here so maybe he would be happy with that. Losing Capoue is not going to get us much in the way of a transfer fee so presumably not critical from a financial aspect so if Valencia cannot get the money together surely we can look at him staying and start integrating him in to the team again. As it stands we have far too many players that we're paying high wages for not playing for the club