The fact that we're still able to sell a player like Joao Pedro to Brighton at least demonstrates that despite the recent turbulence we're a club where young players can develop and potentially use as a stepping-stone to elsewhere, even if we fail to get promoted again. That should mean we can still attract players in.
How many players in recent years have come here and left as a better player. Joao, Richarlison, Deulofeu, Capoue, Doucoure (although he probably went so far back towards the end he maybe ended worse) Compare that to the likes of Brighton, Brentford, Norwich, Arsenal, Southampton etc. We are an awful place for players to develop.
We're unlikely to be competing for many of the same players as Brentford and Arsenal at the moment. Norwich might be pretty similar, though I'd like to think if we were both after the same player this summer we'd be able to offer better terms and edge them out. This season they've been at least as much of a shambles as us. Southampton, sure, but they've also only just been relegated from the PL. Also, Doucoure didn't end up worse at the end - he was good for Everton in his first couple of seasons there.
This issue existed for the entire Pozzo regime - it isn't a relegation thing. Also, there are clubs that are able to attract players in both divisions because of their reputation for developing players (e.g. Norwich, Brentford pre-promotion). I dont think it is any surprise that the premium loanees / young players leaving the bigger clubs tend to steer well clear of Watford. I suspect many agents / sporting directors advise their young players to steer well clear of Watford as we are a total and utter ******* shambles and may well have a new coach in 3 days time who won't want to play the loanee, or speak their langauge or play a remotely similar style of play / system. The only two genuinely big succcesses - Joao and Richarlison -developed in spite of Watford rather than because of Watford. Doucoure's career had a very strange trajectory, he is undoubtedly lower now than his highs with us but hard to say if he is better than when he signed. In any event its sort of irrelevant to the main point I am making.
In my opinion, we have done very little to develop Joao Pedro. It appears that our foreign players are just left to their own devices. There is very little focus on coaching life skills at Watford FC. Sarr, can't speak English. OK, he is as dim as a candle, but the club could do more. Most of non UK players cannot speak conversational English, so how can there be cohesion within the squad and where is the teaching? It looks to me that we have damaged more careers recently than enhanced them. It is also true, that some players never 'kick on' with their careers no matter where they go or who coaches them.
Choudhury and Davies were considered two of the premium loanees last summer, and they came to us. (Davies turned out to be crap, mind - but that wasn't the reputation he came with after having been promoted the season before with Forest). We'd have got Laird as well had we not pulled out and signed Gaspar instead for whatever reason (though he also was fairly mediocre in the end).
I don't think there's much evidence that Norwich are more of a draw than us right now. We'd have also probably still got Toney ahead of Brentford had we actually not be penny-pinchers and paid the fee. Prior to the last few seasons I don't think Brentford will have had much of a reputation for anything. I'm not sure it's even possible to determine whether this is true or false. Though also if JP really hated it here and thought he was regressing, he could have demanded to leave last summer instead, but he didn't. We also got the best out of Dennis last season and make a good profit on him. As an additional point, even in the last few months, despite us not playing well, we've managed to have less heralded young players like Morris and Andrews noticeably improve. He's 30 and already peaked now. But in his first season with us he was still quite raw and he easily improved for us after it. His first two seasons at Everton were fairly similar to his last two seasons with us and clearly better than his first season with us.
He did develop so I am not sure that it was necessary. Also, I think he probably did want to leave last summer but the circumstances of when the bid for him came in (combined with Villa ******* around on the Sarr deal) meant the club couldn't really allow him to go. I dont think he chose to stay here, but made the best out of a bad situation. We didnt really develop Dennis at all though. He came in and from the first game looked good. I am talking more about a young player coming here for 2-3 years and leaving a far better player than when we signed them. We have had reams of "promising" players come here and they have gone backwards if anything (Okoye, Wilmot, Quina, Ngakia, Dahlberg, Penranda, Success etc.). You are always going to get a few rotters, and I suspect some were beyond our help, but I also can't help but feel with a better culture at the club, with most consistent coaches, and cohesive plan for these players (rather than just bunging them out on loan to Italy, Spain etc) then more of these type of players would have succeeded at the club. Sorry. I probably erred in omitting Choudry as I do think we'd have had some competition and I think for the most part he was a good signing. Davis came on a loan with a £15m obligation (lol) so not really sure he fits into that category quite so neatly. Suspect they didnt send him here to develop. We were presumably the only club mad enough to meet that valuation. I think its telling they loaned their promising young player to another club despite our interest. Yeah Morris in particular does seem to have (surprisingly to me) improved quite a bit. Andrews if anything looks to be starting from a bit of a better position than Morris. They are probably worth a mention, but maybe revisiting in a year or two.
How much profit did we make in the end on Dennis? The deal was 'undisclosed', there were various figures floated around, I remember hearing about plenty of 'achievable add-ons', but he's not exactly been first choice, and they are in serious danger of going down
How do you know how good their English is? I know from Andrew French that JP speaks some English, but you can understand them preferring to use their native language in interviews, Pochettino and even Bielsa had better English than they let on when they first came to England
There was a video with the 2 lads from Benfica and they spoke English ( I mean maybe there was a translator hiding somewhere!?) Only Sarr doesn’t appear to speak the lingo here certainly in interviews (and Martins but given he is only here for 6 months probably not worth learning ) Pedro certainly seems to have a good command .
Where on earth has your basis for this come from? They are due the exact same PP as us but have nowhere near our levels of debt.
Ngakia wasn't very promising right from the beginning (or at least I was one of the few who recognised and pointed it out at the time). He's the level of player I expected him to be. Wilmot had inherent limitations for a CB which aren't going to be overcome anywhere. Penaranda just seems like a lost cause. Quina hasn't really flourished anywhere and might be more suited to football in other leagues. Success is the only one of those where there seemed to be a better player in there somewhere which he didn't show for us enough. I've not seen enough of the GKs to comment. I understand what you're getting at, but we still must have managed to do something with Dennis, as he played better for us than pretty much anywhere he'd played before, and than he has since for Forest. He was also 23 when he arrived, so still young-ish.
Agreed. Nothing dampens the soul than thinking there is a rumour and it turns out to be a long missive from the Rous
One way or another we probably will have at least made £10mil profit on him. We only bought him for £3mil.
Yeah, I mean he wouldn’t have scored that brace against Real Madrid in the champions league with any other club than us would he.
It's not - that was just a simple question of timing. We were seemingly the fore-runners to sign Archer on loan in the summer but Villa instead decided to keep him around to see if he would be needed there. But in the end he didn't play much and then they signed Jhon Duran, so they were eventually willing to loan him out in Jan - by which point we already had our full quota of loan players and weren't pulling up trees anyway.
It's really funny that at the time we signed him I defended him against criticisms that he supposedly lacked "top level experience", principally by my pointing out that he'd scored those two goals. But he'd never scored more than 7 goals in one season the Belgian League, so I think it's fair to say that for him to score 10 goals in his first season in the Premier League was "pretty much" a better performance than his general level for Bruges.
This thread is for "transfer talk & suggestions" - if there actually was a rumour then it'd have a thread started about the player in question.
I doubt you could find a single person on here who thought he'd score as many goals for us in the PL as he did when we signed him based on how he'd played at Bruges.
Yes, but he scored a brace against Real Madrid in the champions league. I’m not sure what your point has to do with that?
And I'm not sure what point you're even trying to make, beyond this being just another episode in you following me round the forum and constantly jumping in on my posts before seemingly engaging your noggin.
Well you’re ignoring the fact Dennis was playing in the champions league and scoring against Real Madrid aged just 21 just so you can say you’re the only one who said he’d do ok for us, which is classic Rousey nonsense.
I agree. A condition of Pochettino joining Spurs was that he should converse in English. This was something he was reluctant to do at Southampton. I totally understand it is not easy to learn another language as an Adult or as easy as when you are a child.
I haven't ignored it and that's not what I said. Yet again you're taking pot-shots at something you've either imagined or not understood. You're just a time-waster.
Ngakia came highly rated, but it hasnt worked out, as with Quina, Penaranda, Dahlberg, Success etc. These were at one stage fairly highly rated players. Maybe we just were unlucky, but I think some thought has to go to how we are getting it wrong. I understand the comments with regards to Penarnda/Success etc, and I have sympathy with them, but we arent the first club to have to deal with a young talented player who wants to spend his evenings chasing skirt. The issue is that approach is just to to send them to Malaga on loan with no supervision and wonder why they turn up next season with peroxide blonde heair, 4 stone heavier, riddled with the clap and worse at football. Wilmot won POTS at a club who finished 3 places below us. Maybe its a timing issue, but I certainly dont think hes markedly worse than some of the utter ***** we have had at the back the last 4-5 years. Just have a think how long Kabasele has been here and will continue to be here and the astronomical amount of money he has leeched from the club while being injured 60% of the season and playing like ***** when he is fit. Dennis' pace and strength suit the league and the fact that our team was so ******* rank suited his selfish play style as he had an excuse to try do it all on his own. We gave him a platform to show his talent, but he didnt develop here. I dont necessarily disagree with quite a bit of the stuff you are saying, but you seem to be arguing a number of different points to the one I am trying to make. My whole point here is that very very few players come here and leave as a better player. That is not a new development, and is something I have banged on about for years now.
I think we just hype a lot of our new players as a club like they all do I guess . Last summer there was loads on Okoye for example Mind you there was a lot of content with Edwards too!
Who tf rated Ngakia and based on what? West Ham who are literally barely Premier League themselves happily let him go. Fan overrates player in his own head based on nothing and then says player came highly rated. Bizarre!!!
Yep, immediately when he joined I said that based on his highlights " he actually looks a bit rubbish", and I also pointed out that he had "the lowest pass completion rate out of any outfield player to have played more than 20 minutes in the PL last season."
And my counter-point is that of the players you mentioned as examples I don't think that most of them ever really had the innate potential to really become better players anyway - whether that's due to ability, eg Ngakia, or mentality eg Penaranda. You seem to be clinging to Wilmot, but when we signed him we were in the PL, and the season we gave him 14 starts was one where we finished 2nd in the Championship - I don't think him doing quite well now at 16th placed Stoke, while playing in a back 3 which leaves him less exposed defensively, is evidence that he could play at a higher/better level than the level we were actually at when he was here!
So are we bad at developing players, or do we mostly sign awful players? It has to be one or the other.
