I'd be investing a big chunk of it in players who can and are willing, **** it even actively want to compete with Watford in a championship season next year.
I'm still a bit taken aback by Saturday even a couple of days later. Not just how crap we were but how meek and mild. Losing is part of the game but to lose with such little effort was embarrassing. I'm not sure we put in a tackle let alone a foul. At one point a ball was dropping on the half way line and Sarr stood about three yards from the Liverpool player and watched him as he brought it down on his chest - zero effort to win the ball or even disrupt the player. He was a disgrace on Saturday as so many of them were. The line up didn't help. Masina was dreadful and he seemed to be in a role between wing back and man marking Salah, he was woeful at both and seemed to hinder an already poor performance from Rose. Hernandez is settling into the Domingos Quina category of scoring one good goal and then showing lots of promise but nothing of any use or substance. Foster was woeful on Saturday, yet he is still our best GK option which is worrying. Cathcart and WTE are out of their depth. The lack of application on Saturday was the most worrying thing. A lot of work to do.
Nkoulou is the same age as one of our other free signings who hadn't played in a while - Danny Rose - who still isn't anywhere near fit.
And I generally agree with this, but that wasn’t the best starting eleven available for the day or the best formation.
I don’t think anyone could seriously accuse the owner of being reckless with the money. Selling Sarr to someone like Newcastle for a lot of money is the only hope we have of staying up, IMO, in the cold light of day post-Liverpool. Selling Sarr would generate money from a player sale. It’s not borrowing from a bank. We’ll receive over £100m EPL money from this season which will go a long way to reducing the debt we have. Anything we can generate on top of that can easily be used to help keep us up without harming the club financially. Also, those new players are likely to retain their value , unless we sign utter duds, so it’s imperative we spend the money wisely. This January window is probably one of the most important windows since the Pozzo’s bought us. Make the wrong decisions here and Watford could go back from whence they came and be stuck in the Championship for many years. We could even go full Sunderland.
I think a potential sensible approach if we are likely struggling in January and can also get Newcastle to pay £50m for Sarr would be to pay down £35m and add 2 or 3 younger players who could really make a difference in the championship. My worry at moment is (a) the older mercenaries will need to be offloaded if we go down leaving us very light and (b) we will be compromised on what we can get for Sarr if we go down. This is all stated with my assumption that we are highly likely to go down.
I doubt there will be much left over from the £100m money after paying wages, debt servicing and paying off Deeney/Gray/Success. We may still picking up the tab on some wages to Delefeou and Pereyra!
Newcastle will stay up. They will spend their way out of it regardless of what we do. We may as well take advantage of them in the process, if they want Sarr of course. The smart clubs will wait until the summer and get Sarr for half the price, when we’ll be a Championship club with Sarr in his final 2 years of contract. The way I see it, we have no choice. We have to sell Sarr in January while we’re still holding all the cards.
There won’t be much left, but the debt will be significantly reduced which is very important going forward. If you are a Championship club, with small debt but have parachute payments it’s a huge advantage.
Our staying up would be worth way more than any slight differential we'd miss out on from selling Sarr in the summer instead of Jan. Sarr is our current top scorer - only two other players in our squad have even scored at all! No chance are we staying up if we sell him. You'd truly be guaranteeing our relegation. Which players could we even buy to replace Sarr with the money who will score more than him? Newcastle could potentially "spend their way out of it regardless", but it won't be guaranteed. If they're languishing in the relegation zone come January with a slight cushion between us and them, they might not be able to attract the calibre of players yet to make it certain they'll survive and overtake us with the limited games remaining. If they want Sarr and stay up, then they'd still probably pay decent money for him in the summer as well, even if we went down.
Sarr has one good game every five, he may be our top scorer but that doesn’t really mean much at all. If we can get £50m for a player who has no influence on the majority of games we play in, we should take it. We’re going down anyway with Sarr because he’s not consistent enough. Being out best player isn’t a high bar currently, it’s why we are where we are.
Foster 7 Cathcart 6 Troost-Ekong 5 Rose 4 Kiko 4 (Ngakia 5) Kucka 4 Sissoko 5 Masina 3 (Cleverly 5) Dennis 4 (Pedro 5) Sarr 4 Cucho 4
Probably, but let's at least see where we are in January - if we're somehow still outside the relegation zone then it would be foolish beyond belief to make such a decision which will guarantee we end the season inside it. It would only be vaguely worth considering if we're clearly cut adrift by then, but only for the cash, not because it will improve our chances of staying up.
Here lies the difference of opinion. I think there’s no way we’re staying up if we don’t sell Sarr. It’s all down to money. Where is that coming from? The only place from what I can see is the sale of Sarr. It’s a call to be made by the owner. Is he prepared to roll the dice and overspend? Not seen any sign of that so far this season. Is there a wealthy investor waiting in the wings? not heard any rumour on that front, so that only leaves selling Sarr as the viable option to generate is large sum of cash quickly. It will hurt losing Sarr, but he’ll be gone by the end of the season anyway, so we may as well get used to that idea. From what I’ve seen so far this season, we are so far short of even being able to compete, we need at least 3 quality players (probably more) signed in January. Even if these are loans, it will still be expensive. Very tough calls need to be made. If we go down, Sarr’s valuation will go down too, so this will also be a driving force to sell in January.
I agree if we’re somehow not in the relegation zone come January then it wouldn’t make sense to take the risk at that point, if we’re in the relegation zone I think it makes sense to sell, both to strengthen and to maximise what we’ll get for him compared to waiting until we’re relegated and having our pants pulled down. Sarr gives you an 8/9 out of 10 performance every 4/5 games but is no more than a 5/6 in all the others. If we could somehow bring in 3 players that could give us a 7 every game we’d probably stand a better chance of survival, on the basis we’re in the bottom three of course, otherwise I agree with you.
If we're somehow still outside the relelgation zone with Sarr come January, then it is baffling how you could arrive at your "opinion". It's a big "if" mind, but it's still too early to tell for sure. You didn't even come close to answering my question there - which "quality players" will join us in January if we're in the relegation zone and have sold our best player?! Certainly no one who is actually any better than Sarr, the player we'd be selling to supposedly make way for them.
As per my post to hornetboy above - if we're in the relegation zone then how will we be able to strengthen? Who are these mythical players who can "give us a 7 every game" who will join a team in the relegation zone that has just sold their best player? Even if Sarr scores on an inconsistent basis, it's enough to occasionally win us games and his goals would still need replacing - who could we sign who will replace his goals should we sell him?! Just a reminder - Sarr for all his supposed inconsistency has still scored 57% of our goals this season!
Just as I thought the usual subjects jumped straight in on my post above #751 thinking the figures shown were mine Well I've got news for you lot, those scores were not my choice they were straight from a Sunday Paper! So up yours guys
Which Sunday paper? And if so then why would you even post them to begin with as if they were your own? Truly baffling.
The fact he’s scored 57% of our goals is irrelevant though, it just highlights the obvious weaknesses elsewhere. You can’t tell me he plays well every game? You watch the same matches and he’s anonymous more often than he isn’t. We’ve not kept a clean sheet all season, that’s a cast iron guarantee for relegation, attempting to remedy that alone would give us half a chance at survival.
You use your word of the day, it's "baffling" you cannot understand the issues. However, there is one possible option that could be a god send to Watford. Liverpool don't really need Sarr right now, but they would like to have him. We sell to Liverpool for a fair price, say £50m and they loan him back to us for the rest of the season. In that scenario, everyone's a winner. We keep our best player and have £50m to spend in the market. I'm not putting names to players, as that's a mugs game. But £50m, for Watford, could go a long way if invested wisely. We would need at least one CB, one energetic midfielder and a central striker. For me, that would be a perfect solution and would give us a much better chance of staying up.
Can't really disagree with any of that. Even though I believe Ngakia showed some desire when he came on and Sissoko who was pretty much on his own in midfield never stopped even at 4-0 down. We desperately need a partner for him. All I wanted to see was someone prepared to fly into a challenge even if it meant getting carded but it never happened. All I know is that we're totally fooked if we play passive carp football like that.
I deliberately posted the scores without qualifying whose they were to suck you lot of predictable "Usual Subjects" in, and you fell for it hook line and sinker
I hate so say it, but I think we are going to become Norwich 2.0. We will continue to become a yo-yo club, each visit to the Premiership reducing debt further each time with aging duds brought in to just try and maintain over a year of survival each time. Eventually, we will "break even" and have enough of a stable financial base to couple together a group of players capable of maintaining us as a long term Premiership club. That is obviously the goal of Gino, but I think it will take a few years of up and down to get there.
This is the dichotomy, as Watford fans we tend to get caught up in the worth of our players. For anyone to want to pay £50m for him then his performances will mean we’ll probably be comfortably safe anyway, as that’s the only way anyone will pay that much for him. If he and we carry on as we are, nobody will be willing to pay anywhere close to that figure.
You haven't answered my question - who could we sign to replace the goals we'd lose from Sarr? Aiming for 0-0 every game won't keep us up. The fact that he's scored "57% of our goals" isn't irrelevant when we'd still need to score goals somehow to win the odd game. Of course he doesn't play well every game, but who could we sign instead who would?! Answer this.
That isn’t my job it’s Gino’s, I’m not a football scout. But if he can’t put £50m to use and bring in some players that could have a good game more often than once a month, then he shouldn’t be a football club owner. You keep repeating 57% over and over again like it’s a good thing, when in reality all your doing is highlighting exactly what a problem it actually is.
