Transfer Window January 2022

They needed a CM and Winger heading into the window and got neither. Their fans on Twitter that I follow are far from happy. But yes Wood>Weghorst is an upgrade.

Hopefully Sar’s return will be more impactful than Cornet’s.

 

Au contrae,

I understand it fine FO

What I am referring to are all the out of contract players that are left in the bargain bucket, which is the place that Gino prefers to shop

 

From LouOrns on Twitter, sums it up perfectly

A club without a plan, an identity or a style of football, lurching from one knee jerk decision to the next

 

HANG ON. Robert Snodgrass available on a free. Gino you sly dog I know you're all over that, he's gone and done it again hasn't he!

 

The ‘we can’t afford to compete’ gang are already going full blaze on Twitter….

 

Matty Longstaff - remember him? Pozzo’s wanted to give him 30k a week to join Udinese.

He’s just joined League 2 Mansfield Town.

Pozzo model.

 

Hey, the Pozzo scouting network of some bloke sitting in a room with 30 TVs never misses.

 

True. My money is on Samir and Kamara.

 

If those two leave it’ll be because they’ll be snapped up by better teams/they don’t want to play in the Championship which isn’t really analogous to those who don’t make the cut for the squad because they aren’t good.

 

Maybe Kamara but I'm not sure about Samir. To be fair it has only been 2 games but I have not been impressed with him.

 

Obviously the moment he went down up against Pukki did not go over well. Understandably so. People on here said it showed his ‘naivety.’ Did they say the same when Thiago Silva went down under Kane’s challenge and the red blew for the foul later in the weekend?

I thought he looked good against Newcastle.

 

OK who do we have left and what will be the 25 man squad? I've only listed those that have been in or around the 1st team squad even if only briefly: -

Ben Foster
Jeremy Ngakia (U21)
Danny Rose
Peter Etebo
WTE
Imran Louza
Joshua King
Tom Cleverly
Joao Pedro (U21)
Adam Massina
Nicolas Nkoulou
Hassane Kamara
Craig Cathcart
Dan Gosling (Only if Ken Sema is not classed as home Grown)
Ashley Fletcher
Ozan Tufan
Mousa Sissoko
Kiko Feminia
Samir
Ismailia Sarr
Emmanuel Dennis
Daniel Bachmann
Christian Kabasele
Samuel Kalu
Cucho Hernandez
Francisco Serrialta
Juraj Kucka
Kwando Baah (U21)
Rob Elliot
Edo Kayembe
Ken Sema (Not sure if he is home grown but if he is I would leave out Dan Gosling instead)
Tom Dele Bashiru (U21) (out on loan)
Ignacio Pussetto (out on loan)
Pontus Dahlberg (out on loan)
Domingos Quina (U21) (out on loan)
Philip Zinckernagel (out on loan)
Joseph Hungbo (U21) (out on loan)
Andre Grey (out on loan)
Alberto Peneranda (out on loan)
Mattie Pollock (U21) (out on loan)
Dan Phillips (U21) (out on loan)
Dado Mabude (U21) (out on loan)

That's 42 Players and there are more youngsters that I have not even listed.

Blue do not have to be listed in the 25 man squad but could play for the first team if required.
Black are currently out on loan so are not available for the 25 man squad unless recalled before the deadline.
Green are those we can select our 25 man squad from, but be at least eight home grown players in the squad.
Red are those I would leave out of the squad.

I will list the players I would like to leave the club tomorrow sometime as it's time for some shut eye! Nite All

 

Where on earth has the idea that Ken Sema qualifies as homegrown come from?!?

 

So with the window closed my genuine assessment is that Gino suffered some sort of medical emergency/brain trauma in circa 2019 and has never been the same since.

- Missed out on a player we bid good money for in our most pressing position, on loan to a championship club whilst simultaneously failing to utilise either domestic loan slot.

(for context we’re 4 games away from the all time record for consecutive non clean sheets in the PL)

- Transferred across WTE MKII for free from his own club as an alternative.

- Bought a goalkeeper for good money that can’t play for us yet and then waited until a few hours before the window shuts to enquire about an alternative.

- Will have to leave at least four players purchased in only the last window and window before our of the squad on full pay (or pay them to leave) because they’re so bad you literally can’t give them away.

- On our third manager of the season, again.

The bloke is seriously not well and at this stage anyone defending him is clearly just bored and on a wind up.

 

It’s only when you see it written down like that can you appreciate what a vast collection of garbage Pozzo has managed to assemble with his power player trading.

Feel sorry for JP and Sarr.

 

No wonder Hughes wanted to leave...

 

A whisker away from a 5 year deal. Matty must be wondering about what could've been.

 

Do Nkoulou and Foster count as u21?

 

Am I the only one looking at that squad and thinking we have a chance of staying up?

Sarr is back soon, Dennis has had his bad patch, new defenders, JP showing glimpses of scenes, Bachmann dropped...

It's happening.

 

We have a chance - if we had just signed Sarr and Etebo in this window people would be excited. They are both as good as new signings given how long out

only worry is Newcastle will get out of it so we need to drag others back into the mix

 

But we didn’t, we already own them. Injuries happen to every club.

 

They do but reality is we have hardly seen both this season. Sarr has been out for 3 months

It’s an addition to the mix of players for the 1st 11 we have not had access to for last 3 months.

 

Is Kabasele like a new signing as well?

 

The COGs on Twitter are heavily leaning on the straw man argument that it was naive to expect us to fix the issues in the squad yesterday.

The frustration is that so many issues needed fixing to begin with and that only half of those were addressed during the entire month’s window.

 

I agree it was naive to expect us to fix the issues in the squad yesterday.

If the club can’t fix them over a period of 4 years, it makes no sense to expect that they’ll suddenly pull a rabbit out of a hat. Gamblers fallacy.

When you can’t even sell/ loan championship players to championship teams to create space in your squad, you know you’re in trouble.

 

This has to be a wind up!!! You being positive I'm not buying that from you mate, maybe anyone else but not you

However I actually do think we have a better chance of staying up than many others believe on this forum.

So come on...

LETS GET BEHIND THE GOLDEN BOYS​

 

Well that’s the point. Of course it wasn’t going to all get sorted yesterday. There a lot of pious fans making that point whilst completely ignoring that the fans who are frustrated are looking at a wider picture than just yesterday’s (lack of) business.

 

Far too much negativity from Watford fans. All the moaning and groaning......does my head in.

Anyway, I've taken a look at our rivals, just to see how they faired.

Newcastle -
Now I'm actually really pleased at how their window went. More money than god, and even though they did decent business, I thought over this window they'd be out of sight with their signings, but it's not the case.
Bruno Guimaraes is their statement signing, and no one can deny he won't be good for them. But the rest......Chris Wood (having a poor season with Burnley), Dan Burn (I like him, but he's nothing special), Kieran Trippier (good signing), Matt Targett (Sarr destroyed on opening day) and that's it for them.

I expected them to have done a lot more significant work in this window, which goes to show how hard it is. Not convinced Newcastle have done enough to really pull away from everyone.

Norwich
No one was signed and they lost Todd Cantwell

Burnley
Only one signing. Wout Weghorst came in and Chris Wood was sold to a rival.

Leeds
No one was signed

Everton
They've probably done the most impressive business. Signed Vitaliy Mykolenko, Nathan Patterson, Dele Alli, Donny van de Beek and Anwar El Ghazi but sold Lucas Digne.

They should be ok, but, I'm not convinced by Lampard and Clement as the new coaching team. That could still go seriously wrong.

Brentford
Jonas Lossl and the big one Christian Eriksen were signed. Clearly Eriksen could have a real impact, but there are some unknowns. Is he still the player he was and how long will it take him to get match fit?

So there you go, I don't see too much to worry about when comparing ourselves to our rivals.

There is no reason to expect up turns in form from Norwich, Burnley or Leeds, judging solely on the winter transfer window. Newcastle and Everton should improve, but by how much, is open to debate. Brentford are going to rely a lot on the impact of Eriksen to get them over the line.

 

But still, they found time/resource to buy some Mogi Bayat tat in other positions. Oddly I’d have felt more positive about our owners if they had only brought in Samir and Kamara as at least it would feel targeted .

I guess that comes down to my having zero trust in anything they do.

 

But you’ve already done those in red mate.

 

Now do Watford...

 

You've lost your ******* mind.

Are you high?