I think Louza will turn out to be a good signing in the long term, however, when your budget is very limited, how wise is it to spend virtually all of it on a player who will take probably most of this season to get physically strong enough to operate in the Premier League. If a club like Watford are spending £10m on someone, he needs to be a player who can step in and make an instant impact. This would be my only criticism of the signing. Not the player himself, who I think will turn out to be good, but more the length of time getting him to the level where he can actually start playing.
Not sure many are writing him off. He may well come good but the point is it was a criminal waste of our transfer budget when Cathcart starts week after week.
Absolutely. I see what you're getting at. Gino could have used the money to reward Cathcart for his regular starts instead with a shiny new 7 year deal.
It just seems a really odd deal. There must be an angle to this deal that we are not aware of ? Sums owed for other reasons and the price for this guy was bumped up for accounting or tax reasons ??? Eg the balance sheet and EBITDA looks much better if you pay £7m for an asset (inc deal-specific agents fees ??) rather than £2m for an asset and £5m as just general non-deal-specific retainer-like "agents fees" which might just expensed as regular P&L costs.
Not sure many are absolutely writing him off - I think most are just very frustrated that we spent the vast bulk of our summer budget on a player who isn’t even suited yet to the PL and wasn’t ready to go. If he was cheap or a young prospect from a completely different cultural league (South America, Asia) then fair enough - but he’s played a lot of games in the French top division…it’s hardly miles away in difference. Given we were among the favourites for the drop, should we really have been dropping that type of money on a player who needs 50% of the season just to (maybe)be ready? Whilst simultaneously giving Chalobah away and pushing Hughes out the door? He may come good as you say - but for the position we were/are in, I’d wager better options were available. They just didn’t happen to line Gino’s mates pockets.
Without wishing to labour the point of how unimpressed I was with this signing, I don't think the issue will be as simple as simple as only physicality, even though that is the element which is perhaps most immediately clear and which Ranieri has highlighted - his speed of thought and reading of the game/positional awareness has also looked subpar. Positional play can be improved a fair bit with coaching, but being up to speed mentally e.g. in being able to make the correct decisions quickly while under pressure is not so simple. When he's played so far it's not only been that he's appeared to lack strength and pace, but that he looked lost and as if he had no idea where he should be on the pitch. There are players who physically are not the quickest or strongest, but are still excellent because they also seem to be somehow two steps ahead of what's going on around them, Louza has seemed always two steps behind.
Sarr took a while to get time with the physicality of the Prem, and this guy will need it as well. He clearly has the class, but he needs to toughen up. I hope he is ready as an option by AFCON.
We don't have the luxury of waiting for him to come good. Our midfield is appauling so I would be inclined to throw caution to the wind and play him if he is our best bet to trying to resolve a crippling area of the team. He's not a bad player based on his time at Nantes and you don't lose that overnight.
We’ve got nothing to lose now. We may be as well throw him in and see if he sinks. I’d play him at Arsenal. Might be useful against that type of side.
We've had four months to get him prepared for PL football, if he can't get a game when Tufan (possibly), Kucka and Etebo are out then I'm not sure what the club do with him. We won't be getting our £9m back that's for sure!
As Lou posted on Twitter, this is mental: The only possible thing I can imagine is that he was actually referencing the 2-3 months he hasn’t played and been ‘learning’ so far, just in inexplicably terrible English?!? I cannot see what possible reason any coach could have to think that after 2-3 months of no games, a player would need another 2-3 months of no games to adjust and be able to play football in that division - I know we have form with giving competition winners undue opportunity to muck about in the Prem, but Louza is not one - he’s a professional bloody footballer. He’s here to play, and we’re in the midst of a historic injury crisis in his area of the pitch. There is always the idea that he might be saying he’s prepared to play him in that advanced position in 2-3 months, and happy to field him further back in the meantime, but this is an extremely odd way of phrasing that if so given the talk of his ‘best position for him’. We cannot, I repeat, CANNOT be trundling out against Ole’s Utd two men short at 2.58pm on Saturday, as a flustered underling hurriedly replaces the flat tyre on Clevs and Gozzers’ mobility kart.
I would hope Ranieri means he sees him as a deep playmaker now and in 2-3 months he could work his way up the pitch and play where he has been for Morocco. Otherwise he's saying Louza won't be ready to play for us until after AFCON which is just insane.
It's Claudio just kicking the can down the road because in fact Louza will never be good enough. An old Cleverley would still do more than Louza right now. Louza and Gosling would have to fight it out as to which is more of a waste of a shirt. It's really not, he won't be suddenly good enough by then either. We can't afford any passengers in a relegation battle.
Perfectly normal for the signing that took up the entire summer budget to be not good enough for selection even when there is an availability crisis in his position. Scott and Gino do business properly.
Rather typical that the player who cost some money does seem to be the one who hardly plays. No doubt on a decent contract too.
It’s horribly tough for some forum members. They’re paid up members of the Scott and Gino don’t do bad business fan club - and happily throw abuse at those who aren’t, yet have to try and work out who they can blame for signings they claim are terrible. Just easier to blame someone else on here for it.
