Watford Squad For 24/25 Season

Feel free to merge Mods if this belongs somewhere else.

Looking at our squad now and I feel a lot more confident of finishing in the top half than I did at the end of last season.

GK: Bachmann, Bond
RCB: Pollock, Keben
CB: Sierralta, Porteous
LCB: Ogbonna, Kayky
RWB: Ngakia, Andrews
LWB: Larouci, Sema
CM: Sissoko, Dwomoh, TDB, Louza
AM: Kayembe, Chakvetadze, Ince, Vata
ST: Jebbison, Rajovic

Starting 11 for me (when all fit)

Bachmann
Pollock Sierralta Ogbonna
Ngakia Sissoko Dwomoh Larouci
Kayembe Chakvetadze
Jebbison

Second 11

Bond
Keben Porteous Kayky
Andrews TDB Louza Sema
Ince Vata
Rajovic

Still have Morris, Tikvic, Baah, Doumbia and Bayo.

As far as squad depth goes, we look pretty solid for the season.

 

Agree, if we were going to make anymore signings I would hope it would be for that position, but I doubt we do any more incoming business. We gave Ngakia a new deal, so I doubt we sign another RWB.

 

All in all it has been a decent window. Sissoko looks to be an excellent signing, as do Vatta and Larouci. Some fringe players have got off to a decent start (Pollock, Morris), a new striker coming next week. And the thick end of £40m for Kone and Asprilla is incredible money.

Losing Hoedt is a loss but neither he nor the club can be blamed for that.

Cut through the hysteria that seems to increase every summer and the squad is taking shape quite nicely, TC is a good appointment and we are off to a great start.

 

If Louza leaves, that would leave us a bit short in centre midfield unless Kayembe plays there of course.

 

Who is Dwomoh?

 

This badboy here

 

It’s not his natural position, but Morris must be further up the pecking order at LCB than Kayky

 

Not for me personally, but can understand him being further up on others lists.

 

Squad chart and how it fits into rules etc:

 

Wonder why Ferreira has been deemed surplus.

At RWB he'd be ok and we all know that Ngakia is Janmaat in disguise.

 

Udinese fans thought he was crap last year, played between RWB and RCB.

 

OK TC probably judged him as part of the scrap heap then!

 

Janmaat was bloody excellent but injured all the time. Ngakia is useless and injured all the time. But 10 years younger than Janmaat. There is no comparison.

 

I'm pleasantly surprised at how well we've filled in the gaps, generally. We're a little too lean but the squad is balanced. My only true remaining concern is we're light in CM if Louza leaves.

We addressed immediate needs and replacements at LWB (Larouci), CB (Ogbonna, Keben), CM (Dwomoh), RW (Vata) and ST (Jebbison, Doumbia) while following through with a pressing need to develop within with Baah becoming a surprise force (While Shaq Forde surprisingly hasn't) to provide another option out wide we would have had to recruit otherwise as well as James Morris making a surprise step up to LCB to good effect and both Adu-Poku and Ramirez-Espain able to be considered an emergency options. Although I'm not sold on Tikvic, Almeida is one who should be expected to play a role as the season wears on as well.

 

D’oh! You’ve just compared them.

 

Comparative WUM.

 

I agree with them

 

Post-window update:

 

If Kalu and Ferreira aren't in the squad what happens to them?

 

Is this like the ‘if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?’ riddle?

 

Yes. When they are around is the only sound that you hear that of waves gently lapping on a tropical beach until their contracts expire?

 

I'm very happy with the balance of this team. It has two viable options for each position and has a decent blend of youth and experience.

 

Still look to be a midfielder short for my liking

 

Of course it would make a sound.

 

Amazing work as always! Didn’t realise Baah was U21 (looking at his birthday I think he made the cut by less than a month!), forgot Larouci was HG

 

I'd agree.

Striker could be the big weakness, we're rather depending on Jebbison being good or one of the others making a sudden and sustained step up.

 

Really think this is going to be a nothing season and we just need to avoid relegation. Should use it to establish who is worth keeping for a club that wants to (presumably) start building towards being a play off contender.

We are obviously going to sell Chakvetadze if he continues but outside that, I'm not sure any of our squad would be starting week in, week out for any of the division's top teams. There is some potential there which we need to develop this season (Pollock, Andrews, Baah, Vata), some that would be ok as squad players/rotation options (Sierralta, Kayembe, Bachmann,Sissoko) and some unknowns (Doumbia, Kayky, Keben, Dwomoh) but the truth a lot of the players that get game time aren't good enough for an upwardly mobile Championship team.

There's no way the likes of Dele-Bashiru, Porteous, Morris, Ince, Bayo, Rajovic, Ngakia, Louza, Sema would be anywhere near the match day squads of any play off challengers.

 

Is he planning to retire?

 

I was lucky enough to see this in the flesh this summer. Absolutely stunning.

 

The joys of editing things on your phone... You're slipping though, you missed a sentence later where I'd accidentally omitted a word.

 

Well, it is Sunday…

 

Thought I'd bring this thread back since it's deadline day.

There's a lot of talk about our squad being thin and that we need four or five players. I certainly think we could use a left back, defensive midfielder, right winger and striker. But in terms of numbers we don't actually have a threadbare squad. The main problem is that it's unbalanced. We currently (at the time of writing) have 21 outfield players in our senior squad. Leeds have 20. But the big difference is how those players are spread out. If you group players into their most natural positions playing four at the back the Leeds squad looks roughly like this:

Center backs: 3
Full backs: 4
Midfielders: 6
Winger/AM: 4
Strikers: 3
Total: 20

Our squad looks like this:
Center backs: 6 (!!)
Full backs: 4
Midfielders: 5 (or 4, depending on where you put Kayembe)
Winger/AM: 4 (or 5, depending on where you put Kayembe)
Strikers: 2
Total: 21

Now that's a very unbalanced squad! And when you factor in that we have long term injuries to one midfielder (Dwomoh) and one winger (Baah), plus a three match suspension to a striker (Bayo) it gets even worse.

If you change the formation to 3-4-2-1 it doesn't get much better:

Center backs: 7 (because Morris is arguably a center back in 3-4-2-1)
Wing backs: 3
Midfielders: 5 (or 4, depending on where you put Kayembe)
AM: 4 (or 5, depending on where you put Kayembe)
Strikers: 2

Looking at this, there are a number of question marks and things that the recruitment team and head coach need to sort out, regardless of budget. I get that we can't sign whoever we want due to finances, but surely you could get the balance right by just filling the correct positions. Here's what I would do:

- Decide on a formation to recruit for. You can be flexible in certain games but you need to recruit to a formation long term. I would argue that 4-2-3-1 is the easiest formation to recruit for.
- Get rid of at least one or maybe two center backs. Why is Ogbonna here? Can his contract be terminated somehow? Can we sell one of Sierralta or Porteous? Can we send Keben out on loan to get fit?
- Get a defensive midfielder. This is a must. Why we haven't signed Kyprianou from Peterborough I have no idea. Yes, he's just a League One player but he ticks all the boxes (good age, tall, defensive midfielder, leadership abilities)
- Get a winger/AM on loan to cover for Baah's injury.
- Get a bloody striker. This is critical now. Having just two strikers in any football squad is madness, let alone when one of them is Bayo and the other is an 18-year-old rookie.

Let's see what deadline day brings.