I still think we need Yokuslu plus another. We've got absolutely no creativity in midfield unless Louza finds his feet extremely quickly.
We basically spent our entire budget out Louza. Whether it is fair on him or not, he simply has to step up.
I think we're interested at the right price, but on the other hand we are very happy with the current group. We have an excellent range of options for The Kid in all positions.
We've had a formal bid rejected it seems. https://twitter.com/thewatfordway/status/1429211898017427464
Definitely need upgrades based on yesterday - I think Xisco’s going to really struggle figuring out who his best team is though.
Glad this is theoretically back on. I think Louza may take a while to settle in, but hopefully will come good in time .
As much as we probably still need options in midfield, I'd say we need a CB more, and will we have space for both positions?
I'd love to know what Gino has offered for it to be rejected. He's basically as cheap as you're going to get for a midfielder like him and we've still tried to pinch pennies.
In fairness, Leventhal often chats ****, so I take everything that he says with a pinch of salt. However, I can see why we may have tried a loan with an obligation to buy if we stay up.
I wondered this. If a club has an obligation to buy, is the contract sorted at the beginning or end of the loan? Because Tufan would definitely reject it.
I think it's usually sorted before, but the obligation to buy Tufan is only if we stay up so the relegation clause won't apply.
The good news is that we only have to wait just under 24hrs for Leventhal to inconclusively give us the lowdown on FTRE.
Think we just need to accept AL for what he is - a summariser of transfer rumours with no particular insight most of the time but who does produce some other articles that are interesting. The transfer stuff is probably quite useful for people that don't follow every development closely like some of us do on here. It's unfortunate that he obviously used to have a line into the club that's been snuffed out but he can hardly turn round and say 'I don't know anything much more than a bunch of people on a forum' as his job is to try and drive people towards subscribing to The Athletic. I suppose the way I would look at it is 'would coverage of Watford be worse if he wasn't around?' and I would say yes, it would. In a nutshell, I think he gets a hard time of it (I know I've been guilty of this in the past too!).
Yeah I don't disagree and 90% of the time I'm just being sarcastic for a cheap laugh. That said, if you spend time on twitter (as he does) asking people to send you questions regarding transfers so you can clear them up in a podcast, you're there to be shot at when you don't do that IMO.
I agree, although I do find his 'thumbs up' emoji a little smug when Watford announce a signing. It is as if he broke the news about it first and is 'celebrating' it, when in reality he is usually just picking up rumours from elsewhere.
Agree with your post but I think that bit is even a bit unfair. I'm not sure there was ever a point he had particularly priviledged access. When I've heard him explain the mechanics of things on FTRE or elsewhere it's clear his main sources are largely the ones you'd expect - agents, players themselves, other journalists, intermediaries etc. And occasionally I'm sure the club and its higher ups speak to him too. Within that group you'll have some saying one thing and some saying the complete opposite, not because they don't have a clue but often because it serves a bigger purpose to let a story spread or try to kill it. Plus it's hardly like football transfers are like buying a chocolate bar or something - there are so many moving parts and competing interests that it's easy to see how you'd lose credibility by breathlessly reporting everything you hear. I think he has enough of a filter so we don't see the total dross but it also means we do get a lot of generic stuff. "Watford want a midfielder with previous PL experience", for example. I actually suspect that sort of thing comes from closer to the club. Whereas a link to a specific player is more likely to be an agent.