[SOLD] Luis Suarez

£10m by itself would be inexcusable given he is likely to improve.

With a hefty sell on percentage (If 50% as is rumoured then that is very, very good) and by the Observer's investigation being £13m then it's not a terrible deal. If he performs well and is sold for say £40m in a few years, then we would receive £20m from that and suddenly that's £33m overall. If he flops then we would have got £13m for a dud, although I doubt he will.

 

I believe Penaranda holds that title

 

Why does the fee have to be either good or bad? Can it not just be somewhere in the middle, unremarkable, average...?

 

I think I loan could have worked out nicely, but could have backfired. Some of the possible scenarios are:

-He scores 5-10 goals from now to January, we cancel the loan (assuming Granada agreed to that clause) and demand £20m. Someone takes us up on that and we're £10m richer than we would have been. WIN!

-He does his ACL 3 games in and is out for the season. Flash forward to August next year and we have a player who potentially still doesn't want to be here with 1 year left on his contract and has suffered a severe injury. What would he be worth?

-He scores 10+ goals for Granada this season, we get promoted, he comes back but wants to stay in a place he knows so doesn't sign a new deal. 1 year left on his deal but proved himself at the top level. What's he worth? £15-20m?

-He scores 10+ goals for Granada this season, we get promoted, he wants to play in the PL so signs a new deal. WIN!

-He flops for Granada and scores 2 goals all season. 1 year left on his deal. How much is he worth now?

I think a lot would need to go right for a loan to be the best option, and I can see why we avoided that risk in our current situation.

 

I can't believe we have sold Suarez. I never saw this coming.

Furious to see Watford make at least £10m from a player who has never played for us, never wanted to. I don't care if we need funds following relegation. We should have imprisoned him here against his will!

 

From who? One person?

 

I don't mean to be rude HB1 as I like a lot of your insights on here, but I'm at a loss with this one. The club can only sell him for what they're offered - If people aren't offering £20m+ I don't understand what the club is to do?

I think one of the main issues last season was the mentality in the squad, people's heads went - Someone (possibly you?) mentioned Doucs at Everton and how he's started - He couldn't be arsed last season for us - he could barely kick a ball at points. The club were in a position where he couldn't be kept - He threw his toys out and refused to even train from what i'm hearing. The club couldn't keep him around - and that leaves 2 options, either sell him or loan him out as Burnsy said. With loaning, we don't know if he wanted that (I presume not if he's at the point he's refusing to train), and moreover why keep someone who really doesn't want to be here? We'd be stuck in the same situation as we were last season - having a group of players who are here for the big time, but don't care one bit for the club. No thank you. No one is bigger than the club.

I'm still unsure how he would fair in England, as has been debated to death on here. He could have been a hit, or he could have been a miss. Either way he sounds like a rotten apple who either has an agent who's a ****head or he's got an ego bigger than Troys belly. From what i've seen over the past few seasons, I don't want people around who ain't willing to show up when times are hard, I don't care if they're Messi or Ronaldo - at least have some dignity. Yes he never played a competitive game for us, but we gave him the platform for him to be where he is now, and to act the way it appears he has is disrespectful. We need cash so I am glad we got some, but some tool like that potentially influencing our youngsters like Pedro and Sarr who are willing to play - No thank you, and yes given the choice of holding onto a character like this with the youngsters we have or taking a low fee - I'd take a low fee any day.

 

If you had a sliding scale.....£10m for Suarez would be in the bad zone on everyone's chart.

It's interesting when I look bad at people's valuation for some of our players, a lot were saying he's worth between £20m-£25m. Not one person said he's around the £10m mark. But of course when we sell him for that, it suddenly becomes "good business" or totally justifiable because of world events, or now an average fee.

 

To me Suarez and Estupinan highlight both the positives and the negatives of the Pozzo model.

One one hand, we found two south American players through clever scouting, signed them on the cheap and then sold them on for a significant profit that can be reinvested elsewhere.

On the other hand, we had two promising young players and never got to see them play. They had no interest in Watford FC and clearly never intended to play for us.

I guess the bootlickers will view it as no 1 and the bedwetters will view it as no 2.

 

Then they don't sell......it's quite simple. Will they sell Sarr for £10m because that's all that someone offers? You don't HAVE TO sell. There are other options to the club.

People are not getting the point. It's not about whether we should be selling Suarez, but it is about selling for such a low fee which is the problem.

 

It’s not a demonstrable fact that COVID this winter will be worse than the first wave but that doesn’t stop you stating it either.

 

If we were still in the prem, there was no CV19, and he wanted to stay, we probably could have got that £20m+ fee if we wanted it, as we'd be under no pressure to sell in an inflationary market. However circumstances are very different and dictate the price we could achieve.

 

I see it’s now being framed elsewhere that the player ‘only’ wanted to go to Granada. Convenient. How very ‘Doucoure’ of him.

 

Gray- should get quite a few, especially as we're not going to be lumping it to him. Unless he continues to pick up injuries, he should be our top scorer
JP- not expecting him to be super prolific, but fully expect a healthy amount of goals, hopefully the L*ton game will give him confidence
(Sarr- similar to JP, although he may yet leave)
Perica- looks decent from the little we've seen of him, I'm sure he'll chip in with a few

Deeney- hopefully no more than a bit part role for him. A lot worse than the last time he was in this division, but hopefully he can at least look semi-competent with less hoofball and sometimes a partner to play with
Peñaranda- Interested to see what he can do, but definitely doesn't seem like an out and out striker, and is only going to be a bit part player at best. Tomorrow could be crucial, with so many forwards out, if he can't make the squad, then you'd have to question whether he has a future here
Success- Broadly similar to Peñaranda, but is injured for a while now, and is a complete idiot, so I'm less hopeful for him
Sinclair- feel for him a bit, has tried on the occasions he has played, but L1/L2 is his level. Hopefully for all parties we can get him off the books
Welbeck- I think a Prem club will pick him up, but even if not, with his current contract, I don't expect him to feature for us much at all

 

When Granada come calling......you can totally understand the player's desire. That club is the pinnacle of everyone's career.

 

Who says they don't? Other than not wanting to play for us there's no suggestion his character is poor. He didn't go awol, just told us he didn't want to play for us in the second tier.

It seems obvious from the tweet his agent put out weeks ago that there was an agreement in principle with Granada, and we've held off to see if anyone else would come in to push the price up. They haven't, so we've decided to take that money right at the end of the window. If he knew all along that he was going to Granada (or possibly elsewhere if they were gazumped), and Ivic did too, then he was always going to train outside the main team.

 

Possibly....

 

You get half the profit not half the sale price.

 

Why would you keep him? Are you really saying you'd keep him here, whilst he's refusing to play/train/attend club events? In time this would lead to him not playing, and running his contract down. What other options would you consider?

Sarr - No. One there would be a loss, and two he isn't kicking off, quite the opposite in fact. He's said if the club wants him to play he'll play, and certainly seems to be backing that up.

 

Presumably there was a point where his resolve wavered though, given he turned out briefly against Scunthorpe and was pictured training with the main group.

 

Dumb question, what's the difference? Do you mean as in they bought him for £13m, so if he went for £40m for sake of argument we would get half of the £27m profit?

 

Per Ivic's press conference, Suarez was training away from the group.

You don't have to sell, no. But I would also be interested to know whether you'd take the £10m+ or just let him rot and wind down his contract and value?

Suarez quite clearly had no ambition to wear the shirt. And yes, on the face of it given his age and potential, £10m does seem towards the lower end. But the reality is the guy has only played in the second tier of Spanish football in the last couple of years - it's no guarantee he'll be banging them in for Granada this season on the reg, or that he would have done for us for that matter.

Personally if you told me we were signing somebody out of the Spanish second tier for north of £10m, I reckon I'd feel a little underwhelmed, but happy to be proven wrong.

We take the profit and move on, hopefully reinvesting a little of that in somebody who actually wants to be here or is happy to be here, whilst waiting for his big move...

 

yes thats normally how it works. You can negotiate a 50% next fee but I think they are very rare.

 

I thought Deeney would easily attract bids of around £10m around the time of relegation. In normal times he'd be a prime candidate for a West Brom or West Ham or Newcastle - bottom dwelling PL clubs with money to burn and who struggle to attract the higher calibre players. I absolutely admit now I completely overestimated the health of the transfer market this summer and the desire of clubs to take risks. I also didn't quite twig how bad our financial situation as a club was until the last few weeks. As it stands now, I would say arranging a free transfer for him where we no longer have to fund any of his wages would be a decent deal.

And that's how I think it should work. There's nothing wrong with taking in all the evidence and changing your view about something. A couple of exceptions aside, the whole market is depressed this summer.

 

Ivic said he was training ‘alone’. He has said the others are in another ‘group’. That to me suggests that Suarez has acted different to anyone else. Could be wrong - but he hasn’t said that about any of the other players. I really believe that at some point in the last few weeks , Suarez has just stopped training etc etc and forced an exit.

And when I say I wish they scouted as much on character, I mean it in a way that I hope we row back on selling the club as a ‘stepping stone’ so much and actually sign players who want a career here a bit more. But maybe they do, I don’t know. Just my opinion.

 

Nearly every club who aren't the Elite tier out of necessity need to at times. Udinese have built a reputation for it which means they can attract talents above their station and to a lesser extent we started too as well with Doucoure, Deulofeu and I doubt Sarr would have signed had we said we won't let you move to a larger club when it's right for both parties.

 

I'm sorry but it's you who are not getting the point. The value of a player is only based on what a club is prepared to pay and it seems that no one was prepared in this current market to pay more for him.

 

£6.5m is the difference.

 

I think a FT for Troy would be excellent business, it's far more likley that we would/will have to pay off part of his contract to get rid due to the dead market and clubs prudent attitudes.

 

I refer you to #2162

 

I refer you to #2162

 

Yeah of course, I understand that and appreciate it doesn't work for every player. Even Ronaldo went to United knowing it was his dream to play for Madrid. Mbappe has likely done the same with PSG...

But I do think we have overplayed it as a tactic at times in the market - and as such, it's left us with the situation we have encountered this summer.

 

I understand what you mean but can't see us being anything else than a stepping stone club for the so called bigger players we have purchased. Added to that how many other clubs are tarred with the same brush.
As for the fee if its true I'm with @hornetboy1 as he knows we haven't agreed with alot of fees that he has quoted but £10m looks like a right bargain for Granada. Maybe I change my mind once I've seen the proper rights of the transfer though and let's be honest could really flop in La Liga it's a massive step up. But he's gone and not in my thoughts, he didn't want to be here so adios. It means more game time for Pedro who imo is going to surpass anything Suarez does in his career.

 

Fine, loan him out, 4/6 months at least off his remaining contract if it's just the half a season, to then sell in Jan.

Suppose he flops in La Liga, scores 1 in 16 starts for a Granada side that aren't hitting the heights of last season. Do we genuinely think someone would then offer us £10m+ in that scenario?

It's all well and good posing hypothetical scenarios, but that's all they are. Hypothetical.

I'm well aware this example is also a hypothetical, but it's the flip side of the one you referenced, so should be considered.

I agree with you, £20-25m for Doucs is cheap and it's a shame. But I can't get on board with Suarez being valued at anywhere near £20m when he has never had the chance to forge a reputation in a top tier. Particularly in what is proving to be a stressed transfer market in the current, pandemic ridden, world.

Take the money, and move on.