Chris Wilder - Watford Head Coach #18

It was extremely strange considering we had two goalies at the time, no money, and we couldn't register for months. I still can't really say how good he is as a shot-stopper, but Bachmann's weaknesses are coming for crosses and his distribution, which are also Okoye's weaknesses, so it does beg the question, what was the point? I'd like to think Kalu was brought in with the idea of being a backup/replacement for Sarr, but that's probably giving the club far far too much credit...

 

There is some French bloke on here who wants a word.

 

That is what made it such an abysmal incompetent signing. Restricted finances and what do we do? Use almost the entirety of the budget to immediately sort Bayat out on Louza (a player who wasn’t ready for the premier league) and the rest on a keeper who wouldn’t even be used till the following season. A criminal use of our limited funds by an owner who prioritises player trading and favouring agent friends over all else.

The fact one player is a minor dud and one player is a huge dud just rubs salt in the wounds, but only highlights Pozzo incompetence. Even if they had been successes then the man’s priorities are completely wrong. And don’t get me started on Kalu.

Our owner is an utter disgrace.

 

Makes perfect sense if you view it through one particular lens. A week before we signed him, the Belgian charges against Bayat were announced. One of them relates to Kalu's transfer to Bordeaux where it was alleged that Bayat paid a Nigerian Football Federation member to falsify documentation showing that Kalu had played u21 football earlier in his career. Presumably any prosecuting agency would want to talk to Kalu as part of an investigation. With his career going nowhere fast after he collapsed on the pitch at the start of the season and had only made one subsequent start, uncle Mogi managed to sort him out a nice 3.5 year deal with us. The cynic in me would ask 'is Kalu more or less likely to co-operate with any investigation into his agent after he has has conjured him up a contract that will see him through the "peak" of his career?'

 

Yes though I guess what happened made Kalu even more high profile and stick out like a sore thumb to be spotted on any radar ? I can only think they thought Sarr might go and he'd be a replacement...but really, what a waste of money.

 

Too early to judge Kalu according to some on here.

 

His best game is two weeks away.

 

Key player next season.
"Okoye, nice ball skills there....finds Bacuna, easy ball on to Kayembe, .....great right-foot ball forward to Kalu, ....leaves the defenders for dead, and what a cross!!....Fletcher!!.....4-0!! It had been coming...Everton pulled apart yet again."

 

But we could have a much more successful player trading model in that shop window. Buy players who fit the team needs but who are young and not the finished article, coach them well and then sell them for big money. It's not new and there are several other clubs doing this.

Instead we stubbornly stick to a model of only spending transfer fees on utter shyte, or unsuited foreign kids who are built completely wrong for our needs and environment.

It's insane and has seen us on a consistent path of decline, which we show no sign of arresting.

 

Plus it’s not so much about being able to pocket the £100m+ prize money, I take Tuts point about that, but look at how much damage relegation does to you. All that incremental improvement to the squad over five seasons was wiped out in a stroke, we had to sell players like Doucoure, Capoue, Bobby P, Gerry, Estupinan, Suarez etc. etc. which we could never hope to replace again the following season.

So it’s it so much your gambling with £100m, you’re gambling with probably twice that amount by prioritising signings that won’t benefit the immediate match day squad.

 

Oh, and of course, big picture, the asset value of the football club. Gino currently owns a mid table club worth about £10m. A couple of years ago it was a Premier League club worth more than 10x that.

 

And of course fans used to justify it by saying Gino is a genius because we make a killing in loan fees, which helps the club, until year in year out the accounts have shown we make virtually nothing from them.

 

That's funny, because at the time of him signing you said he: "Looks exactly the profile of signing we should be making".

https://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/imran-louza.58428/page-2#post-3009994

 

Just a myth to either enable a person to keep the blindfold on or used by trolls to deliberately muddy the waters. When it’s proven wrong, they move to the next one. The latest being that Manga will be in sole charge of our transfer activity, conveniently ignoring his actual words which say the opposite.

 

Yep I got that wrong at the time happy to admit it.

By the way you’re very weird trawling through old transfer threads looking for people’s posts.

 

There were a lot of people questioning it to be fair. Many people were struck by how sexy he was, but not many thought it was a good signing for our needs.

 

Yes they tried to do it on the "quite cheap, but not so cheap" basis and it failed badly. Picking up prem ready players who could secure prem status rather than young prospects who may not be ready for years, or throwing ££££ at it for promising already established players and even greater financial risk. I don't think it looked terrible on paper, but there was a reason those guys were available and willing to join, and while short term deals and loans meant we could jettison much of the cost if relegated, it meant there was a lack of commitment/loyalty to the club.....and Danny "I promise I will get thin if you sign me" Rose was just ridiculous.

 

Going over old threads and constantly quoting yourself is weird behaviour however you want to frame it.

I don’t mind admitting I thought a signing would be good when it wasn’t. My being wrong about it at the time doesn’t make any difference to the point that the Pozzos squad management has been catastrophic over extended sample size.

 

I was quoting you, not myself.

 

You quote yourself all the time . You invest time trawling old threads to either selectively quote yourself (for a win) or selectively quote someone else (to score a point).

If you stopped doing it you’d appear less odd and have time to enjoy something else in life!

 

Like what?

 

Like trawling through Twitter to find tweets that annoy you? Much less weird!

 

Not watching Watford.

 

Who actually uses the loan fees defence? I’ve not seen it mentioned genuinely here once, just a boring, tired joke on here to fit a narrative. There’s many genuine things to be upset about surrounding our football, we don’t need to make things up on top of that.

 

Would probably need some input from yourself, but reading a book, going to the theatre, whatever rocks your boat! Your thread archive activity surely takes more time than it’s worth.

 

Plenty on other forms of social media. The Watford world of strange/troll supporters extends well beyond here. You’ll notice I didn’t single out this forum as it’s died down on here since the reveal of it being nonsense.

 

Not sure if on here to be honest, but twitter was full of it a couple of years ago. Fletch was great business because we’d make loan fee. Gosling contract length, Britos extension all justified by loan fee potential. Pusetto. Come to think of it one individual on here was a big pusher of the theory even when pointed out the accounts showed a nominal amount year after year! It definitely wasn’t made up.

 

It probably takes about 10 minutes per week - I'm not going to get through many more pages of the book I have on the go from that.

 

Pretty sure it all started with Obbi Oulare and some ridiculous claims about how much we were coining it in from loaning him to Belgium and the Netherlands.

 

Yes I remember! Didn’t LouOrns (or someone similar) on twitter claim we were getting an annual fee which was the equivalent of that Belgian clubs transfer record?? And claimed we pretty much broke even on him? Heady times!

 

Well you have excellent forum searching skills if it only takes 10 minutes I’ll give you that!

 

Not surprised the loan fees were that huge - don't forget we beat Man Utd to his signing.

 

I’m getting the impression you don’t like him!

 

Which one is that again? I have so many on ignore.