Highly unconvinced by this, hope he is not seen as a regular starter. If it is just for experience around the squad, then OK, just.
Lazy, poor signing imo. However, Cleverley sounds highly convinced so an early marker to judge his managerial accumen on. Hard to judge value unless we know his wages, signing on fee and how much Bayat extracted from the club.
Heard Watford scouts saw his storming first half performance against England and left as they had seen enough to know he'd be a gem again
Still makes me chuckle that people were claiming we’d upgraded our midfield by letting Hughes leave and signing the CM’s we did.
That was obviously total rubbish but I dont think Etebo was an awful signing in isolation. He looked a decent enough player whose season here was ruined by injury. I dont really understand why he was shut out after he came back to fitness, but presumably some contractual issue as its not like we were brimming with quality. Looks like his career has petered out though since so maybe the correct call not to sign him permanently
Think he made a career out of one good World Cup if I’m honest. But can see where you are coming from. That whole summer just smacked of falling on our sword immediately.
This is pretty much the conversation I had with some friends recently. Look how different our summer business was following our initial promotion under Jokanovic to that summer. Worlds apart.
The post Joka summer was utterly brilliant transfer wise (other than the exit of Vydra ). Holebas, Prodl, Ake, Britos, even the RB from Granada.....a whole new defence for peanuts. Capoue for very little. Lots of cheap misses too but a great revamp for little outlay. Last promotion the economics were very different. Huge debts already meant little budget at a time that player prices had gone through the roof. I think they tried to upgrade for little outlay which left us with a mix of "past it" has-beens on loan or contracts with a break clause meaning minimal commitment to the cause. Letting Hughes go, presume to do with relegation clause and contract length was a huge blow.
‘Statement signing’ - ?? ‘In supreme condition’ - maybe, but at 35 for a box to box player?! ‘Owner showing ambition’ - lol ‘A leader’ - hopefully this is where he will earn his keep. We shall see..
Sissoko may be old, but he is still 4 days younger than Cleverley. Life in the old dog yet. (I actually think this is about a good a signing as we can realistically hope for).
Feels like we say this a lot, could be a good signing if we're not relying on him to be anything more than a squad player, but you fear he might be charged with being a bit more than that
If Cleverley thinks this is a “statement signing” and a sign of ambition, he’s very easily pleased. Pozzo loving his choice of nice guy Tom!
Glad you made this point! Behrami was an incredible signing for us. This is a player that man marked/harried Neymar out of a World Cup game, one of the very best disrupters out there. One of my favourite ever Watford PL performances was him quite obviously playing through injury (I think it was Stoke away...) where for as long as he could remain on the pitch he tackled and blocked absolutely everything and then limped to another part of the pitch to do it again. It was a nothing game and he'd had a good career, he didn't have to do it but his will to win was just incredible.
There are plenty of players who play beyond 34/35 and there is no reason why he can't. He played enough last year to say he's still fit enough. I'm more onboard with this signing than I was Livermore. Like every season it's not just about one signing in isolation, it's a collective and if we don't sign a striker then it's going to be tough as Raj and Bayo are simply not good enough
What’s weird is he must be getting paid a relative pittance, so as has been mentioned probably just wants to be with us due to location which isn’t necessarily a good thing. If he’s not getting paid a pittance, well then we’re bonkers.
Any chance you could do an updated one of these based on his minutes played this season? Worried it won't have improved much.
Red this season vs blue last season in Ligue 1. Slight improvement, but still very meh and all so avoidable.
Thanks reids. Actually thought it would be worse, but like you say it is pretty meh. At least Livermore got much further in to the season before his levels dropped.
Did notice he seemed to be always in the middle of any bother trying to argue with the opposition and ref albeit as the captain I guess he will argue .
