I dont think anyone could legitimately argue it hasn't been a successful business. I think the only question mark is over the failure to integrate more of those players at Watford prior to their sales - a long running bug bear of mine. A season or so of good form for Pervis / Suarez, even in the championship, and they likely go for quite a bit more. Hopefully Joao and Asprilla are a sign that is changing. I think you missed Mateus Aisas, but not sure how much we got for him in the end ...
I'm sure if those players had wanted to play in the champ, they would have done. Forcing players to play for a Pozzo team in a league and country they didn't want to play in would leave the Pozzos even more open the nonsensical "human trafficking" accusation. Thankfully Joao and Asprilla are happy to play here....unless their families are being held hostage somewhere.
I think there was scope to at least integrate them prior to that. Given the state of our options at striker and left back, I dont know why they weren't ever at least looked at in pre-season, even if the plan was always to loan them out. Personally think Suarez would have offered more as 2nd/3rd choice striker than many we had at the time. They were never treated as Watford players so its no surprise they didnt want to help in the championship. Joao / Kamara could almost certainly play at a higher level, but are (seemingly) happy enough to play as they know they are valued by the club and have an important role this season.
Without a doubt I'm sure the club would have liked them to stay and integrate them, we clearly needed players in both positions, but no point when the players had made it clear they wanted to stay in Spain.
My point was that they should have been integrated prior to that. They had been on our books for years before, but had never even been invited to pre-season or even to visit Watford's training facilities / to come and watch a match etc. They were not treated like Watford players so why would they feel any loyalty to Watford or desire to come to England. It would have been easy for the club to do but would likely have meant a lot to them when they were knocking around in the lower spanish leagues. It may not have mattered in the end, but it just shows the lack of appreciation that this club has for the fact that players are human beings.
Completely agree with your overall point, but I vaguely remember some work permit issues that stopped some players joining up with the team? Think it may have been crap timing that we got relegated as soon as two decent players became eligible
Yep, one of the worst consequences of relegation was that had we stayed up in 19/20 Cucho, Suarez and Estupinan would've come the following season at zero cost, and allowed us to evolve the squad, bringing down the average age. It would have actually been the perfect example of the Pozzo model but going down scuppered it.
Sorry Burnsy, I missed this as I do most of your posts, as I have had you on ignore for quite a while now. Although occasionally, I do check in to see if things have changed.
My point was that by signing this guy it doesn't stop the pursuit of other players. I'm sure Edwards had no idea who this was but we have a pretty good record for South Americans and this guy might not be for the here and now. I'm sure Edwards would be delighted to have young talented players being added to the squad, who wouldn't?
Ah so thats why your total lack of self-awareness remains! You just ignore the people who point it out to you!
Indeed. Making money from Sth Americans generates the funds to buy players such as an LCB that we are after now.
I know it's a joke, but for the record it must be all my wisdom - I'm actually younger than the mischievous character pictured.
Udinese have a fantastic track record there as well: Nahuel Molina, Juan Musso, Alexis Sanchez, Pereyra, Mauricio Isla, David Pizarro, Luis Muriel, Allan etc all sold for many multiples of millions than what they were bought for. There's been plenty of failures as well but the successes far far outweigh the failures - it's one market that they're very consistent in which is why I always get so excited when we sign a player from South America.
Yes.....this has to be all to do with the scouts they use and the relationship the Pozzo's have in this region of the world. Such a stark contrast from a South American signing to anything else we do.....(ok, Penaranda being the only notable exception)
Even Peneranda you can see why scouts would've been excited when he was younger - a fantastic dribbler who was playing first team football at 16 years old, played a key part in Venezuela finishing 2nd in the U20 World Cup and even his first season at Granada was very decent - so the potential was definitely there, it just didn't pan out how anyone had hoped.
You have no idea how they are going to pan out once they get a few quid in their back pockets I suppose. They either settle for the life they have or want to push themselves further.
Yeah, character + personality is the hardest thing to gauge when weighing up whether to buy a player. Clubs will look at their social media and see if they have a partner/family that are the bulk of their posts or whether they're out with friends etc (but even that's hard these days as most Instagram profiles etc are now controlled by the agent who'll have this in mind.) Character references from past team-mates/managers are the main method, but a youngster isn't likely to have many of these - and as you said, that can change once they've started earning money like they've never seen before.
I've seen people complain that we signed 'the wrong character' in Peñaranda, but was there any indication before we signed him that he had an attitude problem? His attitude problem (or lack thereof) didn't get in the way of him performing for Granada
I would of thought the scar from the gunshot wound on his left leg would of shown up in his medical. That could be construed as an "indication of wrong character" by some.
Well it's easy to say that now that we know he's a bit of an eejit, but one party doesn't mean necessarily mean he was a party animal (and even if he were, it doesn't mean someone couldn't have taken him aside to get him on the right path), and that didn't impact him at Granada
Are you saying John F Kennedy had a poor character? Because you need to be very careful throwing around libellous accusations about US Presidents like that
Don't, you'll get HenryHooter in here trying to convince us that the deep state authorised Penerandas signing.
So you dont think my comments are slanderous? I agree. You obviously dont know much about colombia. My 'bonkers theory' is asking very serious questions about our astronomical debt and concerns the club has made numerous multi million pound transactions with a man who has been charged with money laundering. We are talking about an owner who had a fake bank statement submitted 'on his behalf' as proof of funds to the EFL. These are facts. Stuff like colombia and luxembourg are red flags but facts are facts.
6 years of PL money, £150m in loans and £55m profit on our south american players plus other income. Thats over £1 billion. Where did that money end up going??
Ah but that’s exactly what they want you to think. In fact all our people trafficked stars were forced to play for nothing while all the prem money was hidden. It’s obvious when you take your blinkers off and think about it, ….while dropping some acid.
Probably into building a mansion on Mogi's private island, populated by dozens of average Belgian footballers
Actually it’s not all there. We have historically has very high “other expenses” compared to our peers and these are not itemised. And agent fees are placed into player capital values which again are not broken down.
