I get the feeling he's going to be an absolutely top drawer Championship player for us next year if we go down...
As far as I can tell, we could have signed Olise for the same as we signed Louza for. A player I would have bloody loved to see play for us.
I think that was probably just because we need a defensive midfielder and so they asssume the Pozzo's were being sensible rather than just picking up the deals Mogi had available at that time. I think we were interested in him in the past, but went with Sissokho instead. The Belgian league just seems incredibly difficult to scout from. A bit like the dutch league - the fact that a player is taking the piss in that league often has very little bearing on their ability to do it at this level. Anderlecht fans dont seem to think very much of him, but clearly has improved a lot at Eupen.
In fairness, would he have come here? Will Hughes certainly wouldn't have recommended he come here instead of Palace!
Not really aimed at this post but our fanbase seem to create a narrative that no player will ever join us unless they have Mogi Bayet in their ear or there are zero alternatives to us. I don’t buy it. All premier league clubs are attractive for players. Even Huddersfield and Cardiff were.
Yeah but other PL clubs are more attractive than us because they pay higher wages and actually have a plan for the player. We would rather spend that money on paying off coaches or players to loan at no benefit to the first team. We also have a record of bringing in promising players but seemingly having absolutely no plan for them. Lukebakio etc must have been baffled sitting on the bench watching Carrillo playing every game over him. Same with Joao Pedro with Welbeck and Deeney.
They are not happy with the prospect of playing in the Championship next season. Sent from my TECNO P701 using Tapatalk
No I think most posters accept that if a bigger club, with better medium term prospects and finances to enable them to offer more £££s, want to sign the same player it’s going to be tough to win the battle to sign them. I know your post wasn’t directed at this thread in particular, given Olise’s adoration of Vierra, but it seems plenty believe we could have just signed the guy for the fee CP paid.
As much as I'm critical of us spending that money on Louza, Olise never would have chosen us instead of Palace.
He went to palace as a rotation option, which is why he has only started 3 league games. We could have promised him a guaranteed starting role and a relegation clause in the event we went down. I just don't understand why people say there is no reason we can attract these players. We just dont even seem to try because we are more interested in signing 36 year old ******* dross so that we save a few pennies or lining Mogi's pockets.
Did they really tell him he would only have been a rotation option?! Would we have by contrast told him he was a guaranteed starter?! What's your source for those assertions? Palace are a more established PL club which would have likely offered higher wages, that would have surely been the principal factors.
What is the source for your assertion that Olise would never have chosen us over Palace? I don't doubt Palace offered him more money, but I also strongly doubt his wages are out of our price bracket. The fact they offered more is because they would rather spend a little bit more on quality, whereas our ******ous recruitment team would rather fill our wage book with total and utter dross like of Fletcher, Gosling, Sema, Cleverley et al who are proven not to be good enough for this level. I suspect the contract renewals for Cleverley and Sema or the 5 year deal for Fletcher would have been considerably more expensive for the club than the difference between any offer we would make and the one Palace make. It is just a matter of priorities.
Again, Palace are also a more established PL club. Even if the wages would have somehow ended up the same it would have clearly been a more attractive proposition.
Can we attract them? Yes. Should we be in for them? Yes. Would they have chosen us over most, if not all, other PL clubs? Very unlikely. I don’t want to get into the whole Olise debate again - but a one-off straight payment of £8m paid directly to Reading for one player was never going to happen. Palace got a cash injection and could afford it. In terms of affordability in how we like to do our payments, it was a non-starter.
I think that the budget and status are fair enough. We are what we are. What I think also works against us though, is our policy and the way we are run. If I was an ambitious footballer, all things being equal, I wouldn't come to Watford over an alternative club with similar status and wages, because I'd know the coach has an 8 month life expectancy and know that there was every chance that in 4 months I might be expected to go on loan to Udinese or a random backwater, because I was not part of the first team plans or because I was never bought with that in mind.
The club wouldn’t even meet the very reasonable release clause for Olise, so there isn’t any point debating it.
It was less a comment specifically on Olise, and more our strategy generally. He specifically may not have been affordable, but I just disagree with the idea that we are unable to attract these players. The likes of Ferguson, Doig, Olise were all available for reasonable prices (and presumably fairly reasonable wages ) in key areas we needed reinforcements. However, we spent an enormous chunk of our budget on Louza and Okoye and ended up having to bring in bargain-basement dross like Rose, Tufan and Kucka. Those 3 may not have been good enough and we could still be in the same predicament staring down the barrel of relegation, but we would at least have the potential of a bright future with young promising players to move forwards with. As it is - if we go down we will lose Dennis and Sarr, this squad looks absolutely ******* rancid from back to front.
A signing we have made to send the message to Bachmann and Foster that they won’t be good enough in 6 months but are perfectly adequate until then. (Reading between the lines)
It is less a specific comment to Olise and more about our recruitment more generally. Young, exciting players like Ferguson clearly did want to come to our club. We just chose to bring in ageing ***** like Tufan and Kucka instead.
Indeed. Next season's championship squad looks horrific to me. Keeper aside (assuming he is happy to stay), we'll lose Sarr, Dennis, King, JP, Sissoko. That leaves the old dross on their retirement contracts (Kaba, Cathcart, Cleverly, Gosling, Kucka). Fletcher and Sema on their 5 year deals. A few allsorts nobody wants (Masina/Troost/Quina). Only potential bright spots would be Cucho/Louza/TDB. And the new loan financing to look after. It's going to be very, very grim.