No doubt Val will be wheeling out lines about how happy he is with the squad and that it was never our intention to do much business this January, before selecting TDB as RB on Saturday. So much for one in, one out.
Bit frustrating watching lots of players we've been linked with move - Camara to Charleroi, Hayden to QPR, Styles to Sunderland whilst not strengthening ourselves.
There will be a written piece from AF later on the transfer window. Apparently we tried (and failed) to bring in two players, and we tried (and failed) to shift out two players but they refused to go. Should be an interesting read.
It will only be interesting if he actually names the players. Otherwise it will be a click bait piece filled with nothingness. If the article states that, “Watford tried to sign a defensive midfielder” without actually naming who, then it’s nothing but a Gino mouthpiece that our gullible fans will lap up and state “see told you Gino tried” etc.
“We wanted to sign two players, but neither of them would take a 70% pay cut and the selling club wanted money from us too!!……..but we did try”
I wonder whether teams are done trying to deal with us. Maybe that's why so much of our business is done abroad.
Exactly. Clubs sometimes make a fuss about one another or fall out either because of events on the pitch or off of it, but it always comes back to the colour of your money. We did deals with Everton after the Silva thing and that was a pretty bitter and public falling out.
"We worked on a target player until the very last minute; we made an offer. But the club turned down the offer so that’s why we didn’t get the player we wanted. It was a defender and a holding midfielder, with one a bid and one a loan. [The transfer window] was calm and precise. We were really calm as we knew exactly what we wanted. We have to believe in a transfer. We wanted to make the next step but not only for January. We had the possibility but it didn’t work out. For us it was the right player but it confirmed we have to stay that way. If we get that feeling we have to do everything in our power to get the player, but if it's one per cent feeling less then it's better for us to leave it and to give the trust to our players. I’m not disappointed [to miss out] because I got the support from the Board, we made it together, the Board understood what we tried to do. They gave all the support, even on the financial side to try and get what we wanted. I got that trust on both sides. If I get that feeling it’s not the right player, it’s better to stay as we are. I am very protective with the togetherness we create. If you pick the wrong player, one player can destroy everything in the changing room and that’s why I’m very protective." Preview: Ismaël On Cardiff City & Transfer Window - Watford FC
Even if Val is telling the truth (he isn’t), why wait until the final day? So the club identified our weakness, along with every freaking Watford Fan in the world, a LCB and DM. Then decided it’s in the clubs best interest to wait until the final moment, make an offer they knew would be rejected, giving themselves no time to go back in with an “improved offer” (which we wouldn’t have done anyway) and are now rolling out the excuse, “we tried.” Unless players are actually named of who we wanted, safe to say we can file this under BULL****! Sadly this nonsense has already got the YouTubers, podders, and the rest of their ilk, defending the club which is exactly what the club wanted.
So we’ve wanted a LCB since the summer but the people at the top feel we can go a whole season before looking at it again. It’s just poor planning after poor planning.
Clubs do it the time don’t they and never learn .. If it was a first team regular the selling club aren’t likely to sell at the last minute .
In absolute fairness he doesn't say they waited until the last minute to bid, he says they worked on it until then. They're different things... though ultimately clubs prepared to pay the going rate get players when they want.
I suppose it’s not actually the case, but every transfer window it feels like Watford don’t start thinking about what they want/need until the window opens so that, once negotiations are done any deal is at the last minute or not at all. Other clubs have deals lined up to be completed early.
Except if there is a Bayat brothers opportunity. That Bayo deal got sorted pretty quick last summer and what a success it has been.
As fans we just want transparency. Val has already come out told us “they tried to sign 2 players” and their positions. I have no issue with asking the questions, but fans want honest answers of who we tried to sign. Heck I will even take no names but their age and which club. At least we could speculate as fans about the 3/4 players it could have been. Otherwise it’s just like other windows with the same rhetoric of we tried. If the club knew what was needed then why wasn’t it done? We go back to the same issues of either we didn’t plan properly or our finances are such a mess that we literally can’t afford who we want. Rather than admit any of that, we get fed the same lies from the ownership that “we tried.” It’s believable the first time, maybe even the second. However this is now multiple windows where there are glaring weaknesses in the team, everyone can see it, yet we don’t do anything to fix it. Then us as fans that actually make the club are treated with disrespect and told, “sorry we tried.” The one hope I have of Gino refusing to invest is that he is actually selling the club this year and we no longer have to deal with him and his woeful ownership.
At the risk of sounding like I’m passing the buck, I can’t control the answers I get. As a journalist, I crave communication and transparency. When I worked at WFC and Charlton, I was more circumspect. I can understand and empathise with frustration felt, in between my two spells at the WO and my time at the club, it used to wind me up too. Having been ‘on the inside’ I know why clubs don’t always say a lot, and that can change as different senior staff come and go. I know we had the money there. I also know there was a price above which the club wouldn’t go.
Why would you jeopardise any potential future transfer? Relations with the team/agent etc? It’s pretty ridiculous to be annoyed that a manager didn’t come out and say “Yes, we were after a young, English centre-back from Wigan but we couldn’t meet valuation.” Nonsense.
I’m sure you’re between a rock and a hard place. It’s just very frustrating that as fans on the outside we are constantly being strung along. I think most fans are fed up with it. The playoffs were a real possibility this season, why not go for it? Especially as you’re saying the money was there. I’m glad we had a price that we wouldn’t go above, but it would be nice to know what that price was? Was it £3mil, £4mil or £5mil? Or was it less or more than that? It’s not difficult for the club to come out and say “we tried to sign a young Defensive Midfielder from a bottom half Premier league club, we offered £3mil but they wanted more and we weren’t prepared to pay more.” All we get is, “yeah we tried to sign 2 players, a DM and CB but it didn’t happen because of cost.” Fans want and deserve more information than that purely because there is zero trust with the current regime. Yet again though, they don’t care about us as fans or what we think. We obviously took out the recent loans to strengthen or pay back Gino, since we didn’t strengthen, I’m assuming Gino got a nice little personal pay check along with Bayat. Why didn’t we sign Camara from Udinese? Instead Gino shipped him off with Bayat’s brothers team in Belgium. The exact signing we needed, but didn’t get him. Gino is in bed with Bayat for all the wrong reasons and it’s killing us as a club.
I doubt the players we supposedly went for this window will be the same we go for in summer. Everything will be different depending on where we finish this season. Plus we’re going to have a lot more holes to fill once we’re forced to sell Asprilla, Kone and Hoedt to make up the difference, unless by some miracle we’re promoted. Yet again though, Gino has wasted another window, left us short, and the summer rebuild just got even bigger. So it’s not nonsense to communicate with fans who are targets were by releasing certain information. Teams do it all the time. At least we would know as fans there was plan and the potential targets were going to be decent signings and not some Mogi cast off.
This is not officially 'the club' but we all understand the distinction, and the article details various claimed attempts, with appropriate players named, before concluding with our (to all intents and purposes) failure on all of them, leaving us at the time in the fabled situation of having a dreadful impersonation of a right back we were trying to ship out through the window, and a geriatric incapable of playing there in the way our revolutionary new coach needed him to who was not brought in with the intent of being a consistent starter, for one:
They were good questions Andrew. I liked the fact you probed on the Chakvetadze question after Val came out with a load of word salad on first attempt! Can’t fault the questions and follow ups at all.
You're clearly going about this the wrong way Andrew. Get Val out for one of your pre / post-match curries, drop a few beers and Jagermesiters and the truth will prevail. You could live blog / pod - should get some subscriptions going.
