[SIGNED perm] Imran Louza

If you’re hoping we’re going to spend £30m on a striker you’re going to be mighty disappointed.

 

I'm not hoping we pick up a £30m striker for £8m....

 

I was half listening to the Football Phone-In last night on Radio 5 and a European correspondent was very positive about him, but said that he wouldn't be a Capoue type of player. The way he was described, in my mind, points at a Kante type of player - unspectacular but highly effective at doing the basics, safe in possession and a real terrier in midfield, but also providing good back-up in attack and defence. We certainly need someone in midfield that can retain possession, as we currently just give it away far too much.

I think he would be a better version of Hughes or Cleverley.

 

He's so good, even The Beatles wrote a song about him.

 

You don’t think a midfielder was one of our priorities? I think our midfield is pretty naff bar Hughes

 

I completely agree. Our current midfield options worry me big time.

 

That sounds good enough to me, recruitment heading in the right direction.

 

I try not to go along with the one word or one sentence summary of a situation or player’s ability.

That’s the modern way, the Twitter way, but its usually more complex than that.

Is our midfield bar Hughes poor? In my opinion no, as that’s too simplistic to say, but it could certainly do with strengthening. As indeed it seems we will.

Chalobah showed signs of his previous top form last season, and fully fit will be a big asset next season..but can he maintain full fitness?

Cleverley had his most productive season for us in terms of appearances since re-signing, but again there’s going to be a question mark over his injury record.

Gosling I’d see as a very capable squad option with an important role to play but maybe not an automatic starter.

Having read a fair bit about him yesterday, and enjoyed taking part in the debate on here, I’m excited for the signing of Louza. Sounds a terrific prospect, exactly the sort of signing we should be making and one of the good world markets in which we’ve dealt well in before.

To go into any PL campaign assuming we are fine in any department without at least looking around to try to improve it further would be a huge mistake in my opinion.

 

I don’t think anyone is upset with the signing itself at all - it’s more that there’s a natural reaction to where we are placing our (likely) precious funds before we get a striker of note through the door.

It doesn’t matter what way around we do our business as long as we do it. If we add Borre in the next weeks then £8m on this bloke will be sound business. But if we miss out on Borre and scrimp and save on a budget striker, people will rightly ask why the money wasn’t spent on a better striker.

I’m happy to place belief in the club that they know what they’re doing. But I understand people’s nervousness given the likely limited funds we have to play with.

 

Im not saying we don't need a midfielder at all, it is more the profile of midfielder. He feels more like a slight imrpovement on what we have rather than being the type of player I think we need. I think we have quite a lot of "jack of all trades" midfielders like him who are good at lots of things without really excelling at any of them. I would have liked to see either a proper creative midfielder and / or a proper destructive/defensive midfielder.

Chalobah - it is hard to say. I think he stepped it up massively over the course of the season. If he can maintain that level I don't see why he couldn't play a role in the PL.

Clevs - In an ideal world we improve on him but he does a job in the PL as he has done for many years for us.

Gosling - is naff and think he will be back at muff by the end of the year.

Zink / Quina - No idea. Talent there but not shown enough this year really to convince me they can play a big part. deserve a go in pre season though.

 

I'm liking the sound of that

My opinion. Currently we have a midfield who are very prone too knocks, isn't Hughes and Nates contracts up soon? Maybe one or both have had their heads turned. Gosling, Cleverley are not getting any younger. Gosling I purely see as just cover anyways. Zinckernagel I still dont even class a central midfielder even though he's been thrown in there. Quina God knows what's going on there and hopefully TDB gets a good solid loan in the Championship to gain experience.
I like the Kante comparison and if you're picking up a quality young player likened to him I'm very pleased. Hopefully they get this sewn up very soon.

 

But none of us really know what funds we have to spend!
But CM imo is important as is CB and LB. But obviously not as important as striker.
Time will tell and by the look of it business is being done very quietly so hoping a few are decent forwards. I do believe one is Santos Borre.

 

Yep can fully agree with that, I think we'd all feel better if a decent sized bid had gone in for a good striker. Personally I'm very happy with the business so far as it indicates long term planning by the club, with Fletcher being the only question mark. For all we know the club have some free transfers lined up that will surprise us all.

 

Louza offers us something different to what we have though. He’s agile and can progress the ball with dribbling/carrying, whilst having a better range of passing than all 3 of Hughes, Cleverley and Chalobah

 

With the Fletcher signing, as important as a Striker is (and it is vital) we still need to see a few of our useless strikers exited which I believe is the biggest challenge of them all.

 

Of course we don’t. But we can hazard a fairly safe guess that £8m is a decent chunk of it, I doubt many would argue with that.

 

True enough. I still think he is more similar in profile to what we have than proper creative / destructive midfielder but I take your point.

I suppose the question becomes - do you feel he is the only midfield reinforcements we need or do you think we need someone else in addition to him?

I still think we lack anyone with the "steel" that either Behrami or Capoue had that played such a big part in us staying up. I saw 36 y/o Behrami got sent off the other day for Genoa - I think we should just bring him back for more ****-housery.

 

I think we do yeah, but I don’t think we will as we won’t get all our needs in one window. I think we’ll sign a striker, winger and left back and that’ll be it - unless we can somehow move on Deeney and Gray

 

I think they are just going to have to accept the losses on Deeney and Gray's wages sadly.

Those are probably the areas I would say we need most.

 

Yes, we’ll probably have spent about that much on Gray by the end of his stay here and I am very disappointed.

 

Gray is ***** and we massively overpaid which probably contributed to our relegation, but at least he did also have a few important contributions in our FA Cup run.

Penaranda and Success are more depressing. We renewed their deals despite them both being *****.

 

I've been following this kid's career very closely ever since he broke through at Nantes II, I've seen pretty much every match he has played (or highlights at the very least) and I'll tell you this:

This kid is flat out GARBAGE. He can barely trap a ball, never gets his head up and can be rash/costly in the tackle. If we sign the boy, we are DOWN.

In hindsight I regret spending so much of my life following the doomed career of this lad.

 

Why?

 

Could be a replacement penalty taker?

 

Can you back up your comments with some stats from a free website? If not, don't worry, we'll just take your honest word for it.

 

Imagine having an opinion without including a youtube compilation of the 7 skills he performed over the last 3 seasons with ****** dance music in the backgound.

 

I think our midfield is slow for the PL, and our best player (Hughes) is undersized for the PL, so while I see him playing well, I also see him wearing down.

Chalobah has the quality for the PL, but I am afraid that he's lost a half step and will need a lot of rest to stay healthy. I hope I'm wrong on this, but he's had a LOT of injuries in the same places. Cleverley and Gosling don't have the pace to be regular PL midfielders.

We need youth, pace and creativity there. I don't know what Quina is the answer and of course TDB might or might not have been, but he's coming off injury as well. A young, talented hungry bloke is needed in there. I hope this fellow is it, or that his presence brings up the level of some of the others' games.

 

our midfield is gash

 

I can hear the Vicarage Road crowd chanting his name already.

 

Good to hear. More of a striker than a midfielder but welcome to Watford Michael. 34 so obligatory 5 year deal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gash

 

i am! You would have to be daft not to hope for that!

 

Last I heard Gash had signed for Muff.

 

Gash is an essential piece in the centre of Muff

 

We will both get banned if we keep this up @Rookery Refugee lol

 

An upgrade on our current options tbf