That's a good shout about Sema. Udinese fans seem to want him back and depending on signings I don't think he'll be a starter for us next season. I hope not anyway.
I think they did pretty well out of us last summer. We basically did a horse trade of Deulofeu, Pereyra, Pussetto (and £7m) for Ekong, Perica and Sierralta.
They do like 5 in midfield and Sema seemed to be very suited in the left wingback position for them and even slotted in more centrally on occasions. So one to watch. I do like Ken's passion but fear he's a little to limited in his play.
Hasn’t he literally just signed a new 5yr deal? Not that that’s a huge issue if he’s just moving sideways within the group - but it does suggest he’s pretty happy where he is.
Plus he was used as a left wing-back or left centre-mid at Udinese when he was on loan, not in the more advanced role they'd need if de Paul goes
Saw a tweet yesterday that Giaretta was/is in Milan. Guessing someone saw it on his Instagram or something like that.
Followed up by a picture from his house in Italy. Not saying he wasn't also doing business, but I think he was just going home.
Given GDs injuries, RPs disinterest and the minimal impact Pussetto made, I think we actually did pretty well given we picked up the colossus that is Serralta and another first team regular in TE.
Pussetto I'm convinced was a favour to them when they, needed a bit of cash, but as for Pereyra and Deulofeu, I'm sure ideally, in normal times, they'd have wanted to sell them for real money rather than keep them in the family, I think Udinese was a last resort. None of those players were ever going to play in the Championship, whereas WTE was always going to be a key player, Perica probably could have had a bigger role if we'd got rid of Deeney and Gray, and Sierralta of course speaks for himself
RP was disinterested in playing for us. He has started most games for Udinese this season and has done okay with 5 goals. Deulofeu was being talked about as a £25-30m singing before his injury. He may not be the same player now but if he came back to us he would still be the best player in our squad bar Sarr. Pussetto was **** for us but I would imagine most strikers struggle being played at full back. He was very good for them prior to his injury and was averaging a goal every 3 games. I don't think he would ever have worked for us, which makes the ridiculous 7m purchase followed by immediate leaseback even more mental. It was basically a gift of 14m to Udinese - they get a 7m player for free and we lose 7m for nothing. Troost-Ekong was their fourth choice centre back. Sierralta was even lower than 4th choice. He has obviously worked out very well which he deserves enormous credit for but there was a reason he came in as 5th choice. Perica was their loan dross like Penaranda is ours - he was never, ever going to be good enough. We probably gifted them about 35m worth of players and got players worth at max 10m in return. It was not even close to a good deal and more than wipes out all the Udinese loans and dross they have gifted us over the years.
Geri went to Udinese on deadline day after being linked with other clubs all summer, I don't for one second think that was the plan, it was just a convenient move when no others were available. Pereyra was kind of the same, but without so much demand for him
It made sense from the perspective of the family. Why sell two prize assets in a seriously depreciated market and when one is coming back from a bad injury and the other is in awful form. I guess the hope was to give them a season at Udinese to rediscover their form/fitness and then flog them. However, just because it helped Pozzo didnt mean it helped Watford FC as we basically saw £25m of assets written off. With the finances in Italian football the way they are, I just can't see how Udinese are going to "repay" that any time soon.
Isn’t this exactly the sort of signing that was our undoing in the past? A player who can do much better than Watford forced here against his will? This would be Pereyra on steroids if it happened (which it won’t). For the record I thought Pereyra was excellent to begin with, I feel his form dropped when it became clear he was basically a prisoner at Watford.
Not sure they are that similar. Pereyra is talented but totally spineless. He was at River Plate, the club he genuinely loves, when they got relegated for the first time in their 110 year history. He looked brilliant at times when we were playing well as a team but he always felt like the cherry on top of the cake. De Paul has basically spent the last 3 seasons single highhandedly keeping a pretty awful Udinese side clear of relegation. He is exactly the kind of player that we could do with.
We just got really unlucky, we'd have got real money for him if he hadn't got injured even in a depressed market, but when he did get injured, nobody was going to touch him for anything like what we'd have hoped for. The market isn't back to normal yet neither, so if we'd kept him, would anyone have offered any serious money for him?
Even if we had sold them at a serious undervalue we would still have made significantly more than we got from Udinese. We paid £7m + Deulofeu + Pereyra and in return for Sierralta, Ekong and Perica when I can't imagine the 3 of them would have cost much more than £7m. I understand why the Pozzos did it, but the bloke who said it was a good deal for Watford FC above is talking utter rubbish.
I don't know how much 'real' money we got for Deulofeu, or indeed how much the others cost, but unfortunately circumstances dictated that we couldn't get peak value for him. There are plenty of things to blame to Pozzos for, but that was just bad luck
Im not blaming them for anything. I am just saying that (Deulofeu + Pereyra + 7m) for (Sierralta + Ekong + Perica) does not represent good value for Watford whatever the market conditions.
If you include the £7m we paid for Pussetto on one half of your equation, then you need to actually include Pussetto on the other. At until such a time as he moves back permanently and we can tell how money we actually lost in the trade back and forth.
Even if you do that equation still looks pretty favourable to them. Not sure why it needs to come out though. We paid £7m for a player who contributed **** all to us. He is on loan there and has been pretty vocal that he has no desire to come back here. He will no doubt move permanently to udinese for another undislosed sum this summer and we will see nothing in return.
We’ve no idea if we gifted them or charged them £50m do we ? I’m just saying that the players we received made a bigger impression for us last season that the 3 we sent them would have.
Edit: The Pozzos will make sure the books are balanced for both clubs. If they can’t afford to pay the debt then maybe acquiring a player (eg Hauge) to send to us as part of any deal for De Paul will be how they can pay us back.
We have a pretty good idea by the virtue of the fact our January signings were Lazaar, Gosling and Sanchez. Sierralta and Ekong were both good at championship level for sure. Perica did **** all. If we had sold Deulofeu and Pereyra to a third party (even if for quite a bit below market value) its hard to imagine we could not have signed players of comparable quality and still had quite a bit of cash left in hand.
I am not saying they wont - I am just saying at this point in time that deal represented poor value for Watford FC and so Udinese "owe" us.
Our Jan signings bear no relationship with what we were paid by Udinese. We are skint following relegation so any proceeds from asset sales would be used to pay down debt not spend on new players !
Because I don't arse lick Pozzo and his methods? How did the Pussetto deal benefit Watford FC in any way? We were in a desperate situation last January. We spent 7m on a player who the coach clearly didnt want and didn't remotely improve our squad. We went on to be relegated by one point - could that £7m have been spent on a player who could have got us 1 point over the course of half a season? After we were relegated would that £7m have allowed us to purchase Ivan Toney? The money that was spent was money that Watford FC earned from the TV deal. The fact that it was paid to "group company" who might at some stage return the favour does not mean that it is beneficial to Watford FC at this point in time.
