I'm not totally against this deal, I think Bayo has some potential, but £4.3m is...artificially steep to say the least
If you only care about on field then that’s your perogative (although last year’s effort was simply woeful). Personally I am fuming at the debt, the fact we are so entwined with a single agent who is part of a financial crime investigation, the fact after years of strong revenue and using aforementioned debt we are left with a significant number of players with zero transfer value, and the general deceitful nature of our club. If you aren’t bothered by that then fine, but don’t make out that people are moaning that we aren’t spending £15m on a striker. That isn’t what people are unhappy about. As for the player, hope he does well and is what the new manager needs, rather than another Kalu/Kayembe. Looks okay for championship at any rate.
We are predominantly in selling mode at the moment, and no doubt want to bring in funds first to service the debt and bring in replacements. If we start the season with a woeful team that has no chance of promotion, I will also criticise. You have missed my point re: transfer. What I’m saying is that we do take risks with our transfers, and when they don’t work out, people jump on the band wagon. Of course if we spent bigger, the risk of a flop goes down considerably. In terms of Kalu/ Kayembe these players have been written off too quickly.
All our players are gambles. By going through a single agent we increase the risk of failure because by definition we have a smaller player pool to evaluate and may need to compromise quicker for the fees we can afford. Kalu/Kayembe are already failed transfers. They we’re brought in for 7m to help our relegation fight and couldn’t even make the already poor team. They were not bought as development players. If they now are able to be squad players in the championship and make some contribution then fine but the fact remains they have dramatically failed their primary purpose. Most likely they will end up on loan in Belgium/Bulgaria at end of window.
It is worrying indeed. We've so far weakened an already weak squad. CG has already fed us BS after contradicting his own statement about Cucho the same day with a Bayat special. Obviously more to go and zero links to anyone who will improve us.
I'm hearing it was due to the negative response on this forum. The Board is now very keen to keep this forum onside.
Considering you have historically called me a “massive b3llend”, I’m not going to take lectures from you…..
New Leventhal article just dropped on Bayo - Confirms £5m fee and 5 year contact (!!) - Already in training apparently - Club chose him over Cucho because he is "more physical"... - We wanted Afobe but he snubbed us for Bruge's offer (FACT!) - We're now looking Piroe from Swansea (yeah right) and maintain our interest in Archer - Bayat is working on a deal for Sarr... they want to recoup the magic £28m number which is definitely what we actually paid Leventhal trying his best to cover all the rationales as usual but just seems like a bit of a contradictory mess behind the scenes at the moment
He’s already training with the group Acc to the article that’s dropped on the athletic. Seems to ring true that no further additions imminent. Manager won’t concern himself that bayo hasn’t been announced formally
Excellent work - lots of content to boo / moan about - will keep the forum going until Monday at least
Has Leventhal been plugging that fictitious £28m number yet again? He was challenged on it on Twitter last time and didn’t respond.
To be fair, if we land Piroe and Archer, that dramatically changes the look of our squad. If we have a couple of pedigree Championship forwards augmented with Bayo and Pedro, that makes us look like a fairly potent team....on paper at least.
Edwards: “I was aware of Bayo’s qualities, I’ve seen him in action and he can certainly head a ball, and that is important as part of the way I would like to play is to get the ball in the box. “He has a good attitude in his work, and he’s a player that you can play the ball into and he’ll get hold of it. A player like Bayo could prove to be a very astute signing, if we get him into the right positions and get the right delivery to let him do what he’s good at.”
Sorry but if you believe that then you'll also have to believe his next statement which is "Losing out on Afobe has switched Watford’s attention to other targets, which include Swansea’s Joel Piroe". Lol, as if Piroe would be a secondary target behind Afobe. Leventhal could just be covering his backside because he'd said we were interested before. It still doesn't mean we were that bothered about signing him.
Was also transferred for just over £1m about a month ago from Gent to Charleroi. Nice little earner for Mogi and Mehdi.
They still havent officially announced that King's left or mentioned what they are doing with Rose, so I wouldnt expect Bayo to be announced any time soon
Agreed up to a point, still think we could do with a physical presence in midfield. I do wonder if we're too light weight in the middle
I think it's unlikely we'll be entering the market for a midfielder. In RE's system of 3-4-1-2 we'd only use two central midfielders and in a 3-5-2 we'd use three. So, looking at our current roster we are probably overstocked already. Given the comments coming from the club over Cleverley and Gosling being important players, that would imply neither are going. We also have Louza, TDB, Kayembe, Aprilla, Quina and possibly Manning, if he shows enough in pre-season. That's 8 central midfielders, of which only one is of EPL standard, 2 are senior but adequate for the Championship, TDB and Quina are now experienced Championship players with Kayembe being an unknown quantity but he may actually be decent at Championship level. Aprilla is a wild card, although I think he'd play in a more advance role, with Pedro and/or Quina vying for that number 10 position. Can't see the club going for another CM player, no matter how much we need an upgrade. I think all the focus will be on getting as much quality up front as we can, for as little money possible. If we signed Archer/Armstrong with someone like Piroe/Joao/Davis, then we'd be in business for a cracking season, even if we don't add to the squad in any other area. However, if it's just Bayo and Afobe coming in along with Fletcher, then I think we're just settling to stay in the league and use it as a rebuilding season. For me, to gauge the club's ambition, it's all about the quality of striker they sign.
Players in Belgium were laughing at Watford buying Kayembe. He couldn't make it there. Kalu is not rated in France at all and was surplus to requirement. Getting any money for him was seen as a bonus. Their agent deserves a knighthood for services to the Magic Circle.