With rumours that Watford want(ed) to sign players like Lee Kerr(whitley bay) and Danny Blanchett could this be a sign that Aidy is gonna go for players in the small divisions in search of a hidden gem? Like what Charlton with there signing of Chris ****son of Dulwich Hamlet. Do you agreee with this tactic(if were doing it )and possibly find another Kevin Phillips etc. or do you feel it is a waste of time?? Your Thoughts??
Only a waste of time if it doesn't pay off:]] In all seriousness I doubt that our scouting network is anywhere near as large as our competitiors and also we certainly will not be offering cheques with the same number of zeros. Therefore we will need to look in places that other people are not. If nothing else we can bring them in loan them out and if not up to scratch for us at least sell on to break even or even make a small proffitt.
You can't call them a gem nor can you call them hidden. Wait for this Chris ****son to do something before calling him a gem. Take Jermain Beckford for example, he was far from hidden despite what Kevin Blackwell said at the time, "oh he's a real find". At the time he'd hit nigh on 30 goals in about 30 odd games. My nan could have scouted him ffs !!
I thought the nature of scouting is to find these gems? If they weren't very hidden then you don't need to 'scout' them as much do you?
Fact is, I think we've got more than enough players who need to realise their "potential" to be getting on with.. 33 pro's and god only knows how many academy players. How about we bring in a couple of players who we know are already good enough... just a thought seeing as we've got about £20million in the bank to spend! .
I think that's a very optimistic estimation, really. Transfer budget for the summer will probably be around £5M, which is about the same that we spent last summer (_if_ it's true that Shittu's fee rises to £3M). And no, I don't think our economy would allow us to spend £20M "if we wanted to". Besides, we can't attract players with a high value. Even this season we couldn't attrack a maybe-talent that is unwanted by Fulham. We definitely can't buy, for instance, David Nugent even if we gave them the ridiculus £7-8M they want for him. We _have_ to look for "gems". All clubs do. Even the rich ones have to find gems. Just look at Arsenal: Kolo Toure - £150,000 from ASEC Mimosas (?) Gael Clichy - £250,000 from Cannes Emmanuel Eboue - £1M from Beveren Add to that all the players they bring in for free at academy level. We've made a couple of nice finds as well during the last few years. Hameur Bouazza (dunno where the hell we found him), Bang Bang (from a public park?). But, you usually have to bring in 10 or 15 players just to find _one_ gem. Our new policy of spending £1M on maybe-talents (Priskin, Hoskins) is a bit risky in my opinion...
