I'm telling you guys he won't go to China. It will be a loan or low fee to WBA. They hold all the cards.
There have been reports on here stating that we DID actually accept that £37.5m bid for Ighalo, but that he turned the move down. What can we do in that situation? Nothing. You can't force a player to sign for a club if he doesn't want to, and I fear this may happen again with the bid from Changchun.
According to Sky (I know...) he's agreed personal terms [1]. Not quite sure about HB1's claim of a sell-on, seems a horribly inefficient way to move money between two family owned clubs. Was it reported in the deal when we first signed him? [1] http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11686/10748658/odion-ighalo-very-close-to-leaving-watford-for-china-sky-sources
Not convinced. Just 6 months have passed and now he's up for it? He could have been persuaded if the club wanted it to happen, just as it's doing now.
I accept there may be ways and means but at face value we officially signed him as a free agent after Udinese cancelled his contract. That being the case I don't see how we can have registered the transfer with the FA inclusive of a sell-on clause as that would be a contradiction. Six months ago he was considered an integral part of the first team set up. Now he's probably been told he's facing being left unregistered from the PL squad for the remainder of the season.
Or maybe his (lack of) form over the past six months has convinced him that he won't be able to cut it in the PL, whereas in the summer he had hoped that he might recapture his scoring streak?
The club were probably being a bit too fair and decent, if you like. £37.5m on the table and they left it up to the player to decide. Very honourable and all that, but now we're selling for just £20m to another club in China. It just seems like a bad call and I'm sure one which is regretted now. I'd be amazed if Udinese are not going to financially benefit from the sale of Ighalo. The Pozzo's are very fair with their clubs and their moral code seems to be in the right place, when it comes to this sort of thing. If we sell for £20m, I wouldn't be surprised to find out we only get around £12m with the rest going to our friends in Italy.
West Brom are just trying to **** with his head. The only deal I would do with WBA is a straight swap, Iggy for Ben Foster, otherwise all bets would be off. That would leave Iggy with two options, go to China and earn big money, or sit out the rest of his contract playing for our u23's. I know what I would do.
I'm not sure what else you think the club could have done? Told Iggy 'Thanks, but sign this deal or rot on the bench - because we aren't going to play you'.
Like I said......it's all happening now.....so that tells me China was not a major issue in the first place. If the push was hard enough, he'd have gone. It's not a harsh criticism I'm given the club, because I think they've been incredibly good to Ighalo to allow him to stay considering the staggering offer. I've known players in the past, who have been told the deal is too good for us to turn down. We will have to sell you......and once they hear that, they go. It's the way it works.
. That's hindsight trading. Back when we could have got £37.5 million we had a supposed premier league striker on our hands who regardless of how much we could have got for him we would've struggled to have replaced like for like with the money. Little did any of us or the Pozzos know that his form would collapse quite so dramatically since then.
£37.5m hindsight trading!! Really? I think most thought we should have sold in the summer for that kind of money........and so that's proved to be the case. The club have made themselves look a bit silly. The constant link on SkyNews is saying that 6 months ago Watford turned down nearly £40m now have accepted £20m. I'm just surprised we have done this....that is all. Sometimes people have to admit, and rather defend the club on this, say yes they screwed up........but they're doing the best deal they can now....let's move on. An expensive mistake.
Agreed. Agreed that in the past this was the case, but we aren't a financially struggling team anymore. When you see the club turn down almost the same for Deeney I expect the claim "we have to sell you" caries less weight. I have no doubt the club could have forced him to move if really needed. But at what cost? What message does it send other players in the team if you force out players that don't want to go, just because of a few bad months in a team that was struggling.
If you don't mind waiting until after the Grand National result, I can tell you the winner if you want? £37.5 million is a lot of money and nobody would've blamed the club for taking it at the time, but the whole team had been dismal from the turn of the year, with the blame for this being laid squarely at the door of QSF, due his negative, insipid tactics. Nobody could've blamed the Pozzos and many fans for assuming that by getting rid of QSF and recruiting a supposedly more attack minded coach, that normal service would resume for Igahlo this season. As it turns out, with the benefit of hindsight, he is just crap and wasn't just down to QSF. The difference between £37.5m and £20m represents the drop in his form in just half a season, and I maintain not one of us could've predicted such a decline.
The club were obviously convinced that they could get Ighalo back to his great form of the promotion season and the first half of the last campaign. Again, blind faith shown in Mazzarri because of his reputation of getting the best out of forwards. Had he achieved this, we'd all be glad we turned down that crazy bid from China because if Ighalo was sitting now on, say, 12-15 goals, we would be a lot higher in the table. But sadly it's a case of 1 league goal later...so as Hb1 says, we look rather foolish now. Ighalo may well have turned down the move himself as he was a first team starter back then. Maybe he's had a rethink as he's now no longer an automatic choice. The sad state of affairs right now is our coach, with his big reputation of improving strikers, has got 3 league goals out of Deeney, 1 from Ighalo, 1 from an injury-prone Success and 2 from Okaka. Kabasele has been our biggest goal threat of late. Says it all.
It wasn't a gamble though, that's the point. £37.5m was a massive fee for a player like Ighalo. It was way over optimum value. By the summer, his value was already on the decline because of poor form for a good 5 months. United offered £30m in December, but never came back and probably were relieved they dodged a bullet. I don't blame the club for not selling last December, as the club needed Iggy then......but in the summer, when you've got loads of time to make other deals....to get an offer for £37.5m must have been like winning the lottery but giving away the ticket. A £17.5m shortfall on one player is a massive hit. That sum alone would smash our transfer record.
Alot of post-revisionism going on; go back and read the comments from the summer and many people have a very different opinion to the sentiment now. The club hedged that a striker playing in a struggling team might recover form under a new manager with new attacking players like Pereyra - not entirely unreasonable. Obviously that hasn't worked out and that hedge cost them around 15-18mil. To say the club looks foolish is very harsh in my opinion - many fans from other teams are stunned that we are getting 20, not that we lost 18.
Hang on, are people seriously suggesting that £20 million is a bad deal? The bloke has been literally useless for more than a year now, so how we got more than £20 for him is a miracle of miracles.
If Iggy, as reported, said he didn't want to leave then the club never really had the option. I do suspect though that given choice Gino still would not have sold at that point. As you say, he could have recovered his form. Also selling our top goal scorer would have sent out the wrong message at a time when we were trying to attract players of the caliber of Pereyra.
You are missing the point - he refused to go to China- my guess is that we offered him a huge severance to secure the transaction - the decision not to accept Uniteds money in retrospect was a mistake but we weren't safe last Jan and the ighalo form slide had not started If you are going to use 20/20 hindsight then probably every transaction is not perfectly timed - if we get 20m it is a good deal now given his form
It is silly to make such specific predictions, but he has continued his poor form since Christmas 2015. Deeney has been little better in my view, particularly has he has been almost ever-present (for some stupid reason).
The fact you were so happy Iggy signed a new contract last summer makes me suspicious that you were also convinced he should have been sold at the same time?
Sod the money. If I didn't want to uproot the family and be forced to bugger off to some backwater in China I wouldn't. If our club then went on to say "well, you're not gonna be in the squad and have any chance of playing then" I'd be tempted to respond with - "OK, I'll just put my feet up and watch the footie on the telly then. I'm under contract. Pay me for doing eff all or get me another deal in Europe". Iggy's an athlete. Albeit not a great one currently. He doesn't have to be pushed around by suits. And he doesn't have to be particularly bothered about what we think either. He's from Nigeria.
