I think you can alter a 25 man squad if something like this happens tbf, didn't we do something like that when we let go of a player (Amrabat?), and long term injured Zarate got put into the squad? Not that I particularly care if Gosling gets a spot or not!
Signed because he was free and once played for Utd, I don’t think there was any regard for how we use him, Gino just couldn’t resist the opportunity to hand him a five year deal. I really hope the plan wasn’t/isn’t for him to be our championship striker, as he’s scored 27 league goals in his entire career to date.
Our recent transfer business has been baffling. Much of it defended at the time, but with hindsight, even COGS must be absolutely miffed at the appalling decisions our club hierarchy made during the past few windows.
It's as if they signed him with no-one at the club knowing anything about him, but feeling sure he'd look OK in training and then saw him in training and thought....he's 5hyte.
I was of the opinion that he was signed as an "English" player , squad no. 25 , to meet the quota . On the cheap .
If he's moving on loan to a club who have a different calendar to us, with a view to a permanent deal, I think it's fair to say he's not our Championship saviour! To be fair to him, he might have done a job back in the Champo, but what a bizarre deal it's been!
So as a newly promoted side, with a key transfer window, how many of our signings have worked out? Sissoko, King and Dennis are still playing for us. Kucko too, unfortunately. Of those, only Dennis could be argued to be a success. Absolute shower. No wonder we are down. LHBL
I would say Sissoko has been a success. He cannot shoot for toffee but almost every other part of his game is good enough for our level - desparately aspiring to finish 17th. I think King is also an improvement on the strikeforce we had last season, but you could easily argue that is a moot point when measured next to Gray, Deeney and Success. He desperately needs a goal and if he were to go on to score 3 more and chip in with a couple of assists you'd have to consider him a good signing. 8 goals 6 assists is a decent return in this shower of sh'te with Dennis likely to finish on roughly 11 and 7 respectively This would also knock Bouazza out of the Top 10 for our Prem goalscorers which has to be seen a good thing
Why? What did poor Bouazza do! King probably is better technically etc but isn’t a goal scorer - will he get more in the Championship though ? Sissoko has done well but we still lose the midfield battle too much.
Summer: Louza: HIT (eventually) Dennis: HIT Sissoko: HIT (just about) Tufan: MISS Pollock: N/A King: HIT (needs to score more but a big upgrade, for me) Rose: MISS Fletcher: MISS (but clearly brought in as emergency cover which hasn't been needed) Baah: N/A Etebo: HIT (played well, unlucky injury) Kucka: MISS 55% hit rate Winter: Nkoulou: MISS (similar to Etebo, but injury was more predictable so miss for me) Samir: HIT Kayembe: HIT (too early to tell *really* but he's done fairly well when played) Kalu: MISS Kamara: HIT 60% hit rate Think we're likely to go down because we thought an excellent Championship defence would somehow also be an excellent Premier League defence, despite knowing the majority of it have struggled at that level. Signings have been mostly okay imo, with a couple of classic Pozzo duds
Can't say you're miles off with your summary, but perhaps I'd call Etebo and King misses. Sissoko seemed to be a hit but has looked like a miss for the past 8-10 games. I'd also say that free passes for Baah and Pollock are generous. Signing players who have no value to the team or are ostensibly 'for the future' is all very well, but hard to forgive when the midfield, goalkeeper and defence have been so utterly neglected at 1st team level. Of course, I'm glass half empty.
Baah and Pollock cost hardly anything - it's not as if they hampered our first team recruitment. Plus loads of the bedwetters are always moaning on here about we don't take more cheap punts on lower league prospects such as those two.
Very generous having Louza and Kayembe as hits currently. Context is important. Louza a vast amount of the summer budget and while looking tidy now has contributed little overall. Kayembe brought in to plug a gap in midfield and now somehow behind awful Cleverly in the pecking order.
I actually think our business this season has been pretty decent, certainly better than some of the nonsense of the last few years. We've signed multiple players who upgraded our team without spending a huge outlay. And I think that is the point, we cannot compete financially with PL teams at the moment due to ruinous COVID relegation. I'm mostly concerned that the club become more financially stable and it looks like it is.
Granted it's a bit harsh but after 5 consecutive seasons in the prem we still have him in the Top 10 of all time scorers with 6 goals. So probably not a slight on him, but more another underlining of our pathetic recruitment
Not sure if you're being serious, but if so, have to say, I am amazed that someone can see it that way. I'll give credit that Dennis has improved our attack and arguably, King has too, in so far as he's more mobile than Deeney at least. Other than that, Foster, Kiko, Cathcart and Cleverley are still mainstays of our first team, despite being worrying even at Championship level. For me, the jury on Samir, Sissoko and Kamara is still very much out, since they've all had good and terrible performances, with an overriding tendency to bad results. It's ridiculous that we've signed (how many?) players yet are still relying on proven duds in such key positions. I can't see how anyone can be anything but absolutely disgusted with our last 2 transfer windows tbh.
The fact we signed a free agent in October to cover CB, then shuffled an Udinese player across in January for the same position, then had to buy another right back to cover the dud of a whale we’d previously signed in that position, suggests our recruitment was in the main absolutely awful.
Not to mention sending a loanee back to Turkey and an attacker in this thread reputed to be on the move already too.
Think Etebo and Kayembe are a generous ‘Hit’ there. They are far more suited to N/A at this point. I’d say the same for Nkoulou being a ‘Miss’. And I’m just can’t escape King being a ‘Miss’ personally. He can be better than Gray/Deeney all he wants - scoring in only 3 games all season is terrible by any barometer for a striker.
The problem with aspiring to 17th is that it only takes a slight misstep, injury or a season with 3 coaches again to miss your target. Like with Sissoko, I assume that on paper, he looked like a great signing. But with the other midfielders we have, he’s been exposed as bang average at best. I expect him to drag us along as captain, but he just doesn’t. He can barge through several players before running the ball into touch or mindlessly hacking it to no one - whilst also missing glorious chances to put us into a good position in games where our chances come along as frequently as Haley’s Comet. Think he’ll go in the summer and in a few years time, we’ll look back and say, ‘lol do you remember when we signed Sissoko?’
I’m completely desensitised to all the duds we sign and try to just ignore them, hence why I may be too kind on our dealings. The way I see it we were never going to be able to replace our entire XI with Premier League quality. We’ve got some better strikers, defenders and arguably a midfielder (Sissoko), not sure what else could be done on our budget. The four you list are of course not up to the level, but at least can fall into the very small group of Watford players who aren’t mercenaries. It’s not ideal, but not sure what else we could have done this year.
If we go down, they're not hits. Apart from maybe Dennis who has done all he can really. Louza - Signing a CM not Prem ready but who looks pretty good now once we're down MISS Kalu - Signing a RW not needed MISS Kayembe - Signing a CM who's not good enough to keep Clevs out MISS King - Signing a striker who's not scored for what is now 13 games in a row, 1104 minutes of football. MISS Kamara - Signing a LB in January when we all knew Masina wasn't good enough and blowing what was probs Kamara's transfer fee on Danny Rose as the apparent answer MISS Samir came too late, N'koulou came too late. Giving it a 60% hit rate based on the individual performances to a degree makes sense, put it in context and it's an absolute stinking howler from Gino, Scott & co.
In 12 months we sold Doccoure for £20 million, lost Capoue, lost Hughes, lost Chalobah, lost Pereyra, lost Deuolofeu, got some of Gray's wages off the book ditto Success's and Deeney's supposedly huge wages. We spent £9 million on Louza and £3 million on Kalu. Do not say we couldn't have done more on our budget, it's ********. I wouldn't want us to replace our whole XI with Premier League quality but we actually lost more Prem quality than gained in the last 12 months.
Assessments for Louza and Kayembe are harsh, imo. What changed for Louza to become 'PL ready'? It doesn't look like he's particularly bulked up, it seems he was just actually given a run of games to build some form. Think that's down to mismanagement from Xisco and Ranieri. Same for Kayembe, he's performed better than Cleverley has in the last few weeks but isn't chosen. Is that Kayembe's fault or Hodgson's? Rose was a punt that hasn't paid off but don't think Kamara can be described as anything other than a hit seeing as we actually bothered to address the mistake we made, and he's been mostly very good since signing.
We've replaced some dud but couldn't replace all 11 duds then ? The 4 you mention were good at champ level, the 3 signings you mention have all been very good but the odd below par performance. "Glass half empty" ? Try "Glass 80% empty" and give your head a wobble .
That's reasonable perspective but it's also reasonable to look at Kamara and Samir and say that however good they are (I'd argue OK) they came half a season too late. Louza cost 8m and for whatever reason had played virtually no part in our season until very recently. Overall, these are the decisions which are gonna see us relegated with probably a lower points total than Wooter, Mooney and Clint Easton's era. It's fine to say so and so can be a good player, but Dennis aside, none have done enough to really justify a season performing in the Premier League.
Disagree that those 4 were good at Champ level. Disagree that those signings are all very good. Look at where we are. Look at our results. Give your head a wobble.
Possibly but bear in mind the quality is much higher these days. The current squad would have qualified for Europe in that league.
