But there’s an argument to say Craig Cathcart has played the vast majority of his career at club level as a Premier League footballer. That’s a big level above the standard of leagues Vida has ever played in. And Cathcart is nowhere near good enough anymore.
It would be tricky to argue that imo seeing as Cathcart has made more appearances in the Championship than in the Premier League.
We're now in danger of Leventhal telling us other options are being assessed for the rest of the month, then the window closes and we've only brought in Samir while sending Nkoulou the other way.
This Leventhal update is so strange. Watford "closing in on the signing" of target Vida, and now Watford not made an offer. So what were we closing in on? Was it all a decoy? Are we changing targets based on a potential back-three formation? I agree with Burnsy. It smacks of looking for cheap, easy plasters, not smart solutions.
I think that’s a bit unfair. He did break the news on Kamara and Kayembe well before anyone else. I’m sure Vida is bang on too, as Ryan Gray and and a few others have confirmed it. Club are probably changing their minds or looking at alternatives. The link was probably right, but there is always a lot of things that can go wrong before a player is signed.
I very much doubt it’s us changing our minds, the fact we were willing to offer a 32 year old a 2.5 year deal shows where the balance of power was with the deal.
Very possible that he has probably been offered more money or a longer deal elsewhere, or we have baulked at the fee proposed, and we are looking at an alternative.
That’s what I mean, his contract is up in the summer so I doubt the fee is the issue. He’s 33 in April, so we were willing to contract him until he was nearly 36 years old. That’s lunacy really, so we clearly wanted him to be willing to tie him down for that long. He’s at an age where there is no point coming to the PL as a shop window for a bigger PL club, so it’s far more likely the player has decided against the move, because he can get a lot more cash up front elsewhere, and not be involved in a relegation battle.
Based on a 2.5 year deal I presume by "nearly 36" you mean 35 and 2 months old but yeah otherwise agree. Maybe we have a better option lined up ?
Obviously it is a game of opinions but I'm surprised anyone watches him play for NI and sees him as a liability! He's one of NI's best players and his weaknesses aren't as apparent as he often plays in a back 3 (and sometimes alongside Evans who is fantastic). Sadly, as you say, he is pretty crap for Watford these days. Although in fairness to him, he appears to be the easy scapegoat. He's much better than WTE and Kabasele (not hard) and has arguably been better than Sierralta in his appearances so far this season (also not exactly hard). Still needs upgraded on though.
When he’s pitted against the better players in the league he looks out of his depth, to the point most commentators make a joke out of it being a mismatch, but he doesn’t make the individual errors the others do and if he was filling in across the back four for a competent defence, he’d probably look and do ok.
As I said my old mans thoughts about Cathcart may be internalized by watching Cathcart play for Watford. I don't really watch the North of Ireland so I can't comment on his performances. I don't really think he is a scapegoat for Watford fans, all of our defenders get criticised.
The fact that you label Evans as "fantastic" shows how low a bar you have for CBs and/or how much your NI bias is clouding your judgement.
Started and played 90 mins for Besiktas tonight so doesn’t sound like he’s imminently going anywhere.
He ended up playing a full 120 mins and scored the winning penalty in the shoot-out. Decent evening for him.
Imagine one of our centre backs taking a penalty. Only Cathcart can kick the ball properly and it's not always in the right direction.
I think he’d be decent for us but no complaints from me if we end up signing a younger CB with more room to improve and build our defence around.
Unfortunately failing to sign a nearly 33 year old CB is absolutely no guarantee we go for a younger one instead.
This season is about horses for courses!!! Therefore a ready made class player who can hit the ground running like Vida is one of those horses we need right now. Then we can worry about getting in younger replacements once we have retained our PL status at the end of this season!!
