Roma midfielder on loan with OTB at €10 mill http://sportwitness.co.uk/watford-made-bid-midfielder-loan-purchase-option-discussed/
Yes please! High energy, high pressing central midfielder. Good at disrupting play and is no slouch on the ball either.
Would be very happy with this. A very solid addition in midfield. A steady Eddie type. Can't understand why it's not worked out for him at Roma. But they do like a more classy looking midfielder there. From what I remember he doesn't dive into challenges but does get his foot in and keeps it nice and simple usually.
Good player, we wanted him a few years ago. Isn't he just another Sissoko/Cleverley/Kucka/Etebo though? It would be nice to add another player who has a decent passing range like Louza.
I think he'd be an excellent addition to the squad. Maybe Gosling out and Diawara in? That would be a big upgrade. I don't really see the point in retaining Sema either. He's just not getting a look in. But Diawara is another we wouldn't have during AFCON. He'll be in the Guinea squad. Midfield choices would then be Sissoko, Cleverley, Diawara, Kucka, Tufan, Louza with Etebo to come back. That's 7 first team players. Probably a little top heavy really, and we still have TDB out on loan, who has a big future.
Whilst I like TDB, Diawara is only 2 years older than TDB and has played in over 100 Serie A games and made nearly 40 appearances in the Europa League/Champions League, whilst TDB has half a season in the Championship under his belt.
He is yeah. Guinea aren’t very good though — so would only miss 2/3 games. But knowing us they’ll qualify and win the thing
Cor! Sign him up! This is the calibre of player you attract when you have a proper manager rather than a fat whelk. Is he any good?
Looks average to me though. Doesn’t hold down a first team spot consistently. Maybe he can still improve and decent squad addition, but no cause for great celebration.
For comparison here's Diawara vs Kalvin Phillips radars (from 20/21) - pretty similar numbers although Phillips tackles more.
Mate, look at his name. That's good enough for me. All the scouting in the world won't beat gut feel and exotic names.
This. Sure if his name was John Burton or something cack it would be correct to be sceptical. But Amadou Diawara is going to be a star.
Yep, the peak of this was Brice Dja Djedje. It is a crime against soccer that he wasn't given a chance here.
We were 'linked' to him a few years ago: https://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/amadou-diawara.55883/
I accept you’re looking for some sort of ‘gotcha’ moment here - not surprising given the amount of wrong calls you have made in recent times about our own players! However Diawara is 24 and has played just under 100 games for Napoli and Roma at the upper end of Italian football. He’s played in far more European competition games (both CL and EL) than Capoue and indeed only missed out on the EL final that Capoue won by one round after getting knocked out in the semi’s. He’s moved for bigger transfer fee’s than Capoue despite being far younger. He’s simply played a lot more games at a higher level than Capoue has already. There’s quite a big body of evidence to say what I claimed then was true.
In this instant not massively, I still don't really know much about Diawara. But Capoue was absolutely class last season and it's difficult to imagine Diawara had topped/been "better" than that. Diawara's team got knocked out by the team which Villareal then beat, in a match where Capoue was arguably MotM. I'm not talking about age or potential either, but simply how good they would have been in 2019. Capoue would have played more games in European teams had he been playing earlier for a higher level club that was more in line with his abilities; his performances for Villareal despite being in his senior years have proven what I and many others on here figured which was that he was easily good enough to play at a better club than us. Capoue did also get 7 caps for France early in his career, which is a very high level.
I don’t largely disagree - but there’s always the big question of why no club ever took Capoue off us when his stats were as high as they were. I guess we will never really know.
The reason is simply that Capoue was an ******** who only did the minimum required and never had ambitions to do more. Was far too good for us when he could be bothered, but at times was not even decent for a stinking little club like ours. And also was supposedly poisoning the well behind the scenes.
Maybe in part due to his age? He was great for us from about 28/29, and maybe other clubs might have then been wary of paying the kind of fee for him which we would have demanded for him to leave? And maybe him not having performed at Spurs earlier in his career put some off? Though when you see PSG sign a 30 year-old Gueye for £30mil (whose stats were pretty similar to Capoue at the same time) the above still doesn't really make sense either.
There is a lot of over complication going on here, Capoue was a good player for us, but he was mentally suspect and enjoyed being a big fish in a small pond. He never had the drive or desire to make it at a big club, hence why he never did. Villarreal are mid table la liga team which in itself is an inferior league to the PL. Putting in a great performance against Utd isn’t exactly hard these days.
Sure he might have rather enjoyed being a big fish in a small pond, but Villareal also finished 5th in La Liga last season on top of also winning the Europa League (and Utd last season were generally still superior to the one so far in this one). Plus Capoue was one of their best players across that whole season in both competitions. Yeah they're not doing quite as well so far this season, but you're definitely downplaying what he managed last season while already at the age of 32.
