Another ball-winning Defensive Midfielder suggestion. A standout performer from Germany's U21 Euros win, 23 year-old Niklas Dorsch of Gent (current team of our old mucker Sven Kums). I'd noticed in the past that he'd posted amongst the best tackling and interception stats in both the Jupiler League and the Europa League, but didn't mention him in this thread as I couldn't really find any videos of him. However, I've watched him in Germany's U21 games and he's been impressive there as well. He's an incredibly dogged and hardworking ball-winner with solid all-round technical ability. He first came through Bayern's academy and Gent paid just €3.5mil for him from Heidenheim in Bundesliga 2. His Europa League stats are similar overall to Bakayoko's at Napoli, except with Dorsch being a bit more of a creative passer, while only lacking Bakayoko's aerial ability. He scores the goal early in the video here:
Two others from Germany's U21 side who impressed me - both their CBs, 23 year-old Amos Pieper from Arminia Bielefeld and 21 year-old Nico Schotterbeck of Freiburg. I know a few young Bundesliga CBs have been posted on here, though not these two. Pieper played the right-side of the pair and would probably make more sense for us as a potential upgrade to partner Sierralta. He's a unit, but also not lacking in pace and calm on the ball. He was also Bielefeld's top-rated player on whoscored as they narrowly avoided relegation from the Bundesliga; their defensive record was actually pretty good last season, with a lack of goals being their main issue. Can't find many clips of him but he scores the headed goal at 1 minute here: Schlotterbeck is left-footed and played as the left-side of the two. He's a bit quicker and more proactive than Pieper, though also a tad more erratic. He's a bit younger though in fairness and may even have a slightly higher ceiling than Pieper. As well as being a fairly dynamic defender, he also has a very good long-ball on him, particularly going cross-field to the right-wing; could be useful for finding Sarr. He spent last season on loan from Freiburg at Union Berlin where he generally did well after breaking in to their team towards the second half of the season. Only slight hitch being a red for two yellows in one of his first games there. He gets the headed goal at 3;20 I was as impressed with them in the tournament, if not more so, than say Botman of Netherlands, who is highly rated having just won Ligue 1 at Lille.
Just seen that Freiburg are supposedly willing to sell Schlotterbeck for about €13mil. Stuttgart supposedly interested. We should definitely consider it for that kind of price, after one or two decent seasons he could easily be worth triple that. He potentially has everything.
GK: I think we don't need goalkeepers and only good serbian gk, apart from Dmitrovic(who is joining Sevilla), is Rajkovic(he was one of the top 3 gks in the Ligue 1 in both of his last two seasons and is still pretty young,25) and he would be too expensive probably. RB: We have no one even remotely good and thats why we play with 5ab with wingers playing as wingbacks. CB: Strahinja Pavlovic is excellent and PL ready already imo. He is great on the ball, tall(194) and strong in the air and he has decent speed. He was one of best players in our them when we drew with Portugal recently and did really well against Ronaldo. Today againt Jamaica he scored his first international goal in his eight game and he did it with his weaker right foot. He reminds me a bit of Sergio Ramos. Also super young(20). The only potential problem with him is that he loves to do slide tackles, 95% of the times he gets the ball but in the other 5% it is usually close to a red card. Currently playing at Monaco, but he spent his last season on loan to Cercle Brugge. A top prospect. Matija Nastasic is another left footed cb. He used to play for Man City an was pretty good untill after an injury he lost his place in starting 11 and never got it back. He then moved to Schalke and played in the Champions League there as well but last year they got relegated so he should be pretty cheap. When not injured, he is still probably our best cb and he is still 0f decent age for a cb(28). Sava Arandjel Cestic(20) is a very talented serbian cb who plays at Koln. He can also play as a dm and did pretty well last season. The downside is he is still pretty raw, but then again that means he could be cheaper. He is also a really talented player with a very high ceiling. He had calls for german youth team(he was born there) but he picked our youth team(which proves that he is highly thought of in Germany too). Today he made his debut against Jamaica but he looked very raw. Milenkovic is our best cb but he's way out of our price range(reportedly wanted by Juventus, Spurs, Man Utd, etc) LB: Filip Mladenovic isn't very young(29) but he is an excellent lb. Last season he had 7 goals and 6 assists for Legia in the Polish league and played really well for our NT(most notably scoring 1 and assisting 2 against Russia). The only problem apart from his age is that I'm not sure he has the physicality for PL, he has the stamina but he is a bit lightweight. Aleksa Terzic(21) has a similar problem as Sava Arandjel Cestic. He is really talented but imo still way too raw. Other lbs are piss-poor. Midfielders: Most of our midfielders are either way to expensive(like Milinkovic-Savic for example), really bad(like Sasa Lukic who is wanted by Palace ) or too old(like Ljubomir Fejsa for example). The only midfielder that is really good ad probably not too expensive is Filip Djuricic(29). He plays at Sassuolo and is a player that is really similar to Tadic in his playstyle. He has insane ball control and passing ability. A very, very good player. He was excellent for our nt in the last couple of games too. Wingers: Nemanja Radonjic(25) is by far the fastest player I have seen live or on tv. He is even faster than Sarr, Salah, Mane, etc. Decent ball control, dribbling, crossing and shooting. Only problem is that he is sometimes a bit selfish and he is a bit incosistent. But on his day he is really world-class. He reminds me a bit of Deulofeu, but with a bit less skill and bit more speed. He is at Olympique Marseille but spent last season at Hertha Berlin on loan. I believe he wouldn't be that expensive and he is excellent. Lazar Randjelovic(23) still isn't mature enough but he has had some brilliant games for Olympiacos. He would need some time to adapt too. Strikers: I already made a post about them. All in all: For instant impactavlovic,Nastasic, Mladenovic, Djuricic, Radonjic and Mitrovic An investment for the future: Cestic, Terzic, Randjelovic and Joveljic. I tried to cover every postion, but as I said apart from striker I don't think other positions are so urgent. Here @Chumlax
Radonjic seems the only one of the players listed who I think seems both feasible and potentially good for what we need. He's certainly the style of player we could do with to replace Sema. The main question mark is it's a bit odd why he hasn't featured a bit more for Marseille and Hertha - when used he seems to have had a decent end product. Hertha had an option to purchase him for €11.5mil which they've turned down. There's some speculation that they'll still try and sign him though albeit at a negotiated discount. For less than £10mil he def seems like someone we should consider.
Radonjic is very good. He absolutely humiliated Cancelo when we played Portugal and Cancelo was subbed of shortly after. I think that he would be very good for us in the same way Deulofeu was good with Sarr in the very few games they played together. It really would be very hard for any team to handle both him and Sarr, even if we played a top 6 side.
Watford website keeps going down just one day before the transfer window opens. Multi-transfer extravaganza? (Or just another victim of the worldwide internet issues today...)
Some news from The Athletic: - We are interested in Danjuma - Barnsley have bid £1.5m for Perica - Move for Ugbo unlikely, monitoring Abraham - Interested in Daryl Dike - Villa interested in Hughes if he doesn't renew his contract
Was always the striker who'd be easiest to shift even if he's not any better than Gray or possibly even Success
Chalobah: Doesn't say if talks are ongoing. Says Watford have a decision to make and both parties are relaxed. Cucho: Suggestion is that he's highly likely to join up this season. Quina: Again, does not state either way. But crucially, AL believes we want TWO more midfielders (and perhaps more depending on Hughes/Chalobah) and this would leave Quina out in the cold. Likely to be sold I'd guess. Gray/Success: Suggested they are being offered out and the club are seeking a way to 'broker' Gray's departure - to a top end Championship club. Penaranda: Will be loaned or sold. Career looks finished at WFC. Djibril Toure: Will go on loan to Belgium again. Fletcher: Has signed a 5yr deal that will be announced next week. Gray's replacement according to AL. Ashley Young: Looking less likely to join. Known to want to come back to England but has other offers - suggestion is that we are going cold on the deal due to his unsuitability to play in 433. Sam Johnstone: WFC won't pay what WBA are likely to want (£15m-£20m) and aren't really in the market for a GK anyway. Nketiah: In discussions with Arsenal about a new deal. Watford wouldn't pay the asking the fee but a loan as the window progresses could become an option. Borré: New agent is the source of all the rumours. Argentinian sources say nothing in talk of a move to us. Sources closer to home say he's on the list - but not high on it. Vydra: Tried to get him on loan in January. But a move now deemed unlikely and not high on the list of targets. Harvey Elliott: We want a LW and Leventhal point's to him being a left-footed RW. Says no developments expected to happen with the player until later in the window. Doig: The move has been sounded out. Hibs pointing everyone towards £4m. Concern over a bidding war. Lewis Ferguson: Player being in London was a coincidence and nothing has happened with a move in the past week. Initial interest has died down. De Paul/Hauge: Say's nothing that we don't know. Hauge could happen IF De Paul goes to Milan but it's not in development currently. Udinese will only sell De Paul at the right price and Atletico Madris look best placed.
I love how the club have to think so literally, oh Deeney might be off, we better sign an old over the hill replacement in Murray. Right, now let’s get rid of Gray, but he’s crap, so we need to find another striker just as crap to replace him, let’s sign Ashley Fletcher.
Leventhal is great at telling everyone which deals aren’t happening and that the club have moved on to ‘other targets’ without knowing who those targets are
I would say the club are very hopeful if they believe a top Championship club will buy Gray. Unless it's in the Highland League or the Pitcairn Islands.
I’m thinking along the lines of the Murray deal to us (if that was true) in that they pay him about 10% of his wages. Probably still a tall ask mind.
Almost no deal at all then really? We're stuck with the useless sap aren't we? Even allowing for the lunacy that is professional football,no one is stupid enough to buy Gray.
It seems the highly anticipated 'new forward line' is going to be Deeney, Cucho, Fletcher and one other. No pressure on the one other then.
I do wonder if it’s going to a low-grade punt - and the majority of funds go towards Danjuma (or similar) and we try and do what some clubs do with having wide attackers who score more than the striker - and solidify the CM behind that 3. Then hope that pays off and be in a better position to spend more on a striker next summer.
It does seem a bit random for Leventhal to state our interest (however minimal it is). He says the accounts will lay bare why we have to be extra careful in the market - yet just a few column inches above says we hold interest in a £40m striker! Can only think that we hold an ‘interest’ that amounts to that we’d take him on loan in the event that no one else comes in for him. Bet those in the corridors of power at Stamford Bridge are p1ssing themselves mind you… ‘Wait. They want a striker and they are interested in our youth striker who we don’t want and was on loan at an obscure Belgian club OR Tammy Abraham for £40m? Do they know how to conduct a striker search?’
Further to this - IF the club decided to have a front-3 of Sarr, Joao Pedro and Danjuma next season, and potentially a goal-scoring CM in there too, I wouldn’t be mad about it. It’s better than what we had last time around and would have definite goals in it. But we would be hoping for 38 game seasons from all of them and that’s unrealistic. The question mark would be can we get in a sufficient reasonably cheap (if £20m went on Danjuma) alternative to Joao Pedro? - because any injury to him would mean falling back to options in our ranks who aren’t up to it.
I agree, it was probably unfair of me to omit JP from the list of striker options. He was obviously burned out by the end of last season but I do think he has the potential to kick on next year after a rest and with some better quality around him (as you say a new LW and possibly a forward thinking CM to provide support).
Only one year left on his contract. 24 years old and only given a two year contract when he signed. They clearly didn't rate him very highly even when moving him from Udinese to us.
It seems a bit left field Barnsley being interested in Perica. I think it adds weight to us looking a Dike and maybe offering him them Perica as part of the trade. Personally I think Watford should do that type of transfer more often. Players who are not wanted by us, are still pretty decent at Championship level or lower leagues in Europe. We have a stack of players who fall into that category, and they really should be used as part-exchange in transfers. Clears out the deadwood and also we pay less for the incoming player. A win/win.
