His hip injury was at start of the season up till January. Then he basically played 90 minutes in every game pretty much save for 3 from then on (one came off after 18 minutes then the other 2 75) https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/lucas-joao/leistungsdaten/spieler/234787
Averaged a goal every other game, that's a yes from me. Didn't score in either game against LTFC, that's a no from me.
I will go further than that and say, if we do buy him and he is good, then that will be good. If we buy him and he is not good, that will be an error. I hope that helps.
I know they said they are going to change their approach but this seems like too much of a departure.
Watford have joined the chase for Reading striker Lucas Joao, who is the subject of a £3m bid from Turkish side Besiktas. The Hornets also interested in Southampton’s Adam Armstrong #watford #readingfc https://twitter.com/darrenowitcoop/status/1541359624888193025?s=21&t=L8wovgtNwtDRmce9H4h5Kw
For me, this would make a lot more sense and would be a good investment at £3m. He's a 1 in 2 ratio goal scorer in the Championship. 28 is a decent age too. He did have a lengthy spell on the side lines because of a hip injury last season, but came back to play in every one of Reading's final 22 fixtures, scoring 10 and assisting 3 times.
If Edwards wants players he can rely on for 40 games a season that would surely rule him out?! Wouldn't say no, but the likes of Gyokeres and Piroe are as good if not better, and even though they'd cost more initially they'd also have resale value. But anyway, just sign them all to be sure!
I’m never quite sure I understand what is meant by ‘joined the chase’. Does that mean we have put a bid in, or do we have to run a field first
I thought we joined the chase a few weeks ago? At least that's what Ex-Watford Employee told us all on Twatter. And he knows his stuff...
Ex-Watford Employee is an alias account for Daniel Maloney, who is also an alias account made by Elon Musk and one of his AI bots.
It’s like ‘Hunted’. The players go to ground at the start of the window, then teams of scouts and trackers from the clubs chase them down. The longer the player can last on the run without detection, the longer the contract and bigger the wages. Some of our canny older players could last out two weeks easily and bag another five years.
Not every investment needs to be one for the future. Joao represents good value for a player who will improve the squad now in an area we are very weak. Those players are 3 or 4 times as expensive as Joao. If they come here and play well they may have resale value, but both have also only had one good season in their careers and represent massive gambles at the quoted price. Joao has been a fairly consistent ~10 goal a season striker for most of the last 6-7 years even while playing for some pretty mediocre sides. His all round game is pretty good and he fits the type of striker Edwards wants. Unless our budget is significantly greater than I expect it to be, I think that Joao is a better use of funds than either of those 2.
I wouldn't say no. More of a Bayo type striker though which isn't a problem. Still like the thought of Armstrong playing upfront with either of these.
Looking at reports today I got the impression our sudden interest in him was one of 2 things... 1) deals are pretty much in place for Sarr and Dennis, RE has told the club he isn't interested in loads of circumspect signings but he'd like a couple of low millions signings instead, and this guy is priority, or: 2) We're about to sell JP for decent money, so RE has said OK but give me some of the profit to get this guy in...?
A couple of extremely charitable readings (to a series of conjectured scenarios in which we are interested in Joao and prepared to sell JP), to say the least.
Local Reading rag Exclusive saying we're considering bringing him in: https://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/...d-considering-signing-former-reading-fc-star/
As an option off the bench, it wouldn’t be a bad signing. We desperately need to sign a striker that’s going to get 20 goals a season though. Vydra, Deeney, Graham, King and so on. We have got to get that type of goal scoring striker back.
Rumour probably checks out. Random local journalists don't exactly go in for Watford clickbait and he's been on the wanted list before. Classic Pozzo Ben Manga signing.
