Yes I have and that’s the point I’m making. It really isn’t about the data, it’s about me making a statement that we would be smart to go for Williams as cover. That suggestion was met with peoples opinion that he’s not good enough. So I’m proving that he is to try to get people to understand that to say he’s not good enough is false. And as proven per 90 Williams put up better numbers as an 18/19 year old. Yet some of our fanbase still seem to think he’s not good enough, even though the data proves otherwise of that season. I’m not saying he will be a starter for us, but I would rather him in the team pushing Rose while Masina is out, than have no-one with Prem experience at all as back up. This isn't sarcastic, genuinely asking you, what LB would you bring in that’s around £2mil, with Prem experience, fits our wage structure, who would push our senior LB’s for a starting place, and potentially make us stronger depth wise?
United wouldn't give him to us unless he was a starter. And honestly, given Rose's age and my doubts over Masina'a ability, I'd far rather sign Doig and structure the payments if possible.
United would know looking at our LB options he has a good chance of becoming our starter. He still has to earn it. If given the chance, and this is hypothetical. Let’s says we had the option to buy Williams or Doig, who would you want?
United would want far more than that. Absolutely no point in loaning him out if he’s going to be on our bench. He’d learn far more being surrounded by the players already ahead of him at United than he would at Watford
Does Williams fit our wage structure? Information online about player wages isn’t that reliable but Sportrac has him at £65k a week. Which would make him one of our highest earners, below only Deeney and Gray (and we’d never offer them that money in retrospect). I think he’s ok and sample size issues and the fact he’s been playing alongside excellent players in one of the best teams in the league makes it hard to evaluate him. But why would the club spend £2m to loan him + £3m in wages for a player who isn’t clearly a level above and would give us no resale value. We could spent £3-4m on Doig and less than £2m in wages for the same period and he’s likely to be a part of the squad in the future too and would give significant resale value. Also, I’m not a big fan of right footed left backs. They can’t really get to the byline and pull back or get round the outside and cross as well and it blunts the attack a bit. We saw if a bit playing Kiko there last year. He’d get up the flank really well but then just be shown the outside.
They thought Garner was the second coming because he'd never really played for them to show how crap he is. If you look at his thread now though you'll see the realisation is finally dawning for them with him as well the more they see of him. Unlike Garner, Williams is someone who has actually played a lot for Utd so many of their fans will have seen enough of him to make a reasonable judgement. PS how many live Utd games have you ever been to in arriving at your judgement of Williams, if that's so important?
Doig will be more than £3-4mil. Most reports are saying their asking price is £5mil+ and considering his contract is until 2024, they don’t need to sell him at a cut price. I’m not saying Doig isn’t a decent option, but better than Williams, very debatable. Doig has done nothing in a competitive league. We all know the SPL is the equivalent of League 1 with Rangers and Celtic most likely a mid table championship team. In my opinion, Doig is a greater risk at a greater cost than Williams.
Leventhal said today that the asking price is 4m. I don't think Scottish clubs other than Celtic or Rangers are in a position to demand over 5m for a player in this financial environment. He's a risk but the reward of the risk working out is a lot of upside. The reward of Williams working out is a solid LB/RB option for a year. Given how much the club is(n't) spending, there's no way we spend 5m+ in fees and wages for a loan and I, for one, wouldn't want them to anyway.
Enough to know there is a decent player there who has a higher ceiling than any of our current LB’s. He probably won’t be a top 6 LB, but he will be a Premier League player most of his career.
I think Leventhal has proven enough over time that he had no clue most of the time. Every article is filled with get out phrases so when it doesn’t happen, he still appears ITK. Reality is that no-one outside of Gino, Dux and Giaretta has any clue what we are doing, who we want and what’s going on behind the scenes. I highly doubt he is on £65k p/w. There are also reports saying he went from £4K p/w to “around” 10 times that and is projected he’s on £40k p/w. So the deal would be around £4mil if we pay a £2mil loan fee and 100% of his wages.
There’s also a bunch of reports saying Southampton are unwilling to meet his wages of £60k/week. For what it’s worth I think Leventhal is in the know, he is just only told certain things and has to walk a tight line. I reckon he’d be at least as if not more familiar with the potential price for Doig than you or I would.
His ceiling doesn't really matter much to us whatever it is - it's unlikely we'll ever pay what Utd would want to sign him permanently and he's not good enough right now to be worth bringing in on loan for a few games next season. As a side-note as well, I'll repeat that if he stays as a left-back, being right-footed will really limit his ceiling. He could be a regular PL player in future, sure, but it doesn't even seem clear yet in which position and he needs regular game time over a year or two to get there which there's no point in us giving him on loan.
Right, so no-one really knows, there are reports of various numbers. You picked the highest to prove your point and say the deal will be worth x. I picked a lower number to state the deal will be worth y. He really doesn’t know. He once knew things, but clearly his source(s) from inside the club have left. Nearly every article is guess work. It’s no different than conversations we have on here, down the pub or talking to family members about what we think we’re doing. The fact that when something does break, majority of the time he’s never even hinted one bit that we're interested etc. He also post about 5 hours after everyone else has already broken it, but does so in a way that makes him look in the know by saying things like, we’ve been tracking him for a while.
He normally has a detailed long read on the signing with interviews from youth coaches etc posted within 24h of the player being confirmed. How do you think he manages that if he’s just scrambling after another journalist has broken the story?
Hes a journalist. It’s his job to get interviews etc. if he couldn’t do that in 24 hours he wouldn’t have his job. Does he have football connections, yes. Does he have ITK knowledge of watford, no he doesn’t.
Bearing in mind we spent a season playing a lot of mid-table Championship teams, who were by and large pretty pathetic, I would say that a team who were head and shoulders above everyone else in Scotland, and did well in Europe, are better than the likes of Stoke and Preston
people really need to get past the idea of leventhal being the source of public transfer scoops and appreciate him (or otherwise if you are so inclined which is also fair enough) as a journalist/fan that writes in depth pieces and interviews on the club’s present and past for those that are interested.
I don't know if I am agreeing with you or disagreeing with you when I say that I think his role for the Athletic means that he is more interested in writing the in depth pieces than doing transfer scoops, and that his prioritisation of the former does not mean that he knows nothing about our transfer plans.
He doesn’t really ‘break’ any exclusive transfer news so I don’t think he’s ITK in that sense. And I know he leans on Sami Mokbel from time to time for some stories. What I think Leventhal does do is amalgamate the names he’s gets from the wider media stories and then put them to people at the club - and then he filters out the total nonsense and just speaks of those the club has held an interest in. Thus creating a belief he’s just reporting the names that others broke before him - but I think he just names the players he’s been able to corroborate.
I'll be honest I rely on @LouOrns, @Burnsy and furiously searching Twitter for my transfer news. @DrewH pops up with the odd bit of info too.
Yes i think we are agreeing on this one. I don’t spend time reading other club journos at the athletic tbh but would be interested to know (without actually doing the research obviously!) how many other middle to small clubs’ reps give out more transfer scoops. For the biggest clubs who pay big fees the rumour mill works in their favour to unsettle players (and of course more non affiliated media has an interest in fuelling this for clicks) but not sure it does for small teams where there is no competitive advantage in sparking a bidding war. I think you have to look at more independent journalists who dont have to stay in a particular club’s good books for genuine scoops - just there arent too many that are particularly interested in investigating watford links! Anyway - really enjoy reading more educated player insights from the scouting experts on the forum. Thanks for taking the time to do so
https://twitter.com/RossAftbl/status/1419975897034235913?s=19 Reliable source, or yet another Twitter bullshitter?
You just need to take a look through their timeline and follower count to realise they know nothing. Supposedly Griffiths was sacked by Celtic two weeks ago for example...
