I personally think Leventhal is very well connected. But the general line on here about him is and has been for some time that he hedges his info because he is no longer ITK.
I’m very prepared for disappointment. But I am not going to count my dead chickens until they have hatched.
No worries mate! Kabasele came back from injury on Friday, and WTE will be rejuvenated following a successful AFCON. Plenty of depth, and you can almost look at both like new signings.
That's not the general line, though - that's an accusation/suspicion that has been occasionally thrown about by a few posters, and mostly not that recently (in Watford FC terms) because he clearly does have some form of sources/an in with the club. Again, apart from anything else, if he really did have no access to privileged information because he had somehow lost it, he would be completely useless to The Athletic, given that he is their full time correspondent for us and, broadly-speaking, no one else. He hedges his info because of that reason - he can't afford to anger the club, and he often paves the way for their disappointments. Equally, he can't present conjecture as serious reporting/fact in the same way as some others can, because of his reliance on the relationship, but that hedging is also emblematic of and linked to his mouthpiece role.
I agree with that assessment although I do think there is a selective embrace of Adam’s reliability reserves by some exclusively for when he reports bad news. I also think that the fact that he acts as the club’s mouthpiece or is manipulated by certain club figures means we should take what he says a week out from the transfer deadline with a pinch of salt. He may be being fed/asked to promote this line to enable the club to have a little more bargaining power as they seek to secure a final target. If it was well-known that Watford were desperate for another CB that can of course have an impact on our capacity to bring in that CB; just look at Newcastle.
Whether you think Leventhal is a club stooge or not, never forget last time around in almost identical circumstances, all we got was Pussetto. For things to be different Gino will need to have learned things, and he keeps coming up with ever more impressive ways to demonstrate he hasn’t learnt anything.
I look at the squad now and there is tiny percentage of players with Watford in their heart. Sissoko, Pedro and even Cucho on his cameos lately are the only ones to me that are showing any passion in a Watford shirt. People say ohhh but you need some class and style to win matches! Of course but if they are not giving heart and desire the skillset to score and win matches are void. Roy and Ray are going to need nothing short of a miracle to motivate this uninspiring bunch of mercenaries. No it's not over because luckily there are some teams just as pathetic as us but we need to start getting points off these clubs.
Just seen that the best player I liked the last time I did this is apparently joining Brighton. We do love a South American wonderkid, I just wish we'd do it more often!
We do a fair amount, we've only just signed Asprilla who is a similar age and position to this guy. Brighton seem to be paying £7mil for him as well, which isn't the kind of signing we can or tend to make very often. He does seem a good prospect though. Doesn't seem "too small" either - similar height but much more stocky than Asprilla for instance, and not as small as Carbonero.
Yeah I was surprised about the price - I thought coming from a club in Paraguay the fee would be cheaper, according to the transfermarkt the record fee for that league £5.4m! Enciso is 5"6 - that's much smaller than Asprilla (6"1)
Linked with Ashley Young (who has been told he can leave Villa for free). Wouldn’t be totally averse to it as he is such a versatile player and a decent set piece taker but would rather use any spare squad spots on a GK or CB. https://www.teamtalk.com/aston-villa/ashley-young-transfer-watford-norwich-newcastle-exclusive
No way is Asprila 6'1 From the clips I'd have guessed Enciso was closer to 5'7. He's still only 17 as well so could have grown slightly since being listed as 5'6. Either way I thought he already looks big enough for a winger in the PL when you consider the likes of Bernardo Silva and Emi Buendia. Judging from clips and regardless of their height I definitely reckon Asprilla will have more issues getting shoved off the ball initially than Enciso.
I thought he looked short when we were initially linked with him last year, but I think he's grown a lot. If you watch his international debut he's definitely 6ft+
I've looked closely at the images and even with full screen on my iPad the best I could establish was he's about 2cm tall.
Would love him back, but with Kamara in the building, it's not a position we need to fill unless we bin off Masina and I can't see that happening.
I mean.... I'd take Ashley Young 100 times out of 100 over Sema. Hodgson will surely rely more on set pieces and if I see Cleverley chip another one at zero pace to the first man I'm going drop a bo11ock.
Why this man is still allowed to ever take a corner is truly beyond me. Literally let anyone else take them. He is absolutely horrific at them. Zero pace or whip, just a horribly floated ball in that the keeper or defence deals with comfortably almost every single time. Sums him up as a player. Completely underwhelming.
A reminder of course that in his final matches in charge of England, RH had Kane taking corners, which seemed rather bizarre. So following that logic, I guess we will see King or Dennis on ours soon.
He doesn't - he's had a terrible set-piece record at pretty much every club he's managed - Palace ranked 15th, 17th, 19th and 13th for set-piece goals when he was managing there.
Yes @reids please come and save us from relegation (to the extent that your current role allows you to do some additional consulting).
Would be good to at last be able to get some decent service to King of the Vicarage Road. You're quite good at this. You're not in the music industry are you, by chance ?