The Udinese market is a useful one in the Championship these days, even their players deemed expendable can do a job in the Championship, but who could we realistically get from them who would be good enough for the Prem? I'm not even sure Geri, if he even fancied a return, would be up to it anymore after what he's been through
No idea, probably none of them! I was thinking they would be more Molla Wague, Zeegelaar style filler than anything else.
I doubt anyone will pay Watford what they want for Sarr this summer if we go up. I think they will take another look at him in the PL in the first half of next season at least before deciding on a bid. Even if they like what they see we might get to keep him on loan until summer 2022. I also doubt he will push for a move straight away, given he was happy to play a season in the Championship.
I think there is a difference between filing them with the EFL and at companies house. I suspect we have done the former but taken advantage of the 3 month delay allowed in filing at companies house so maybe we won't see them until the end of June 21. So the last publicly available information meantime is 2 years old
I thought that relegated clubs have a different filing date so we haven't fallen foul of the rules yet.
Hopefully one with enough pace to hare away from the defence as we continuously punt the ball forward in an effort to relieve the non-stop pressure.
A couple of questions that may have already been asked and answered here or on another thread that I've not seen. How much financial trouble would we really have been in if we didn't get promoted this year? How do we approach next season building a team to stay up while trying to prevent being put in a financially precarious position again if we did get relegated again? Given that we had 5 years in the prem and still feels like we were on the brink of financial troubles if we didn't go up this year, how does any team that's relegated, especially poorer clubs like us, palace, Newcastle etc really offset the financial implications of being relegated. Is it just simply if we'd have sold all our best players, Sarr, Hughes etc and built a mid to upper championship table side out of the remaining money after clearing debts then we'd have been ok and we put ourselves at risk by keeping those players and gambling on getting back up immediately?
I think we'll rely a bit on loanees, free agents (like Ashley Young) and possibly an Udinese player or two next season and the aim will be to scrape 17th. I think our strategy needs to change in terms of throwing big contracts at players (Deeney, Gray) that will really hinder us if we go down. Especially if the players themselves aren't that good...
How much trouble? Anywhere from appallingly bad to apocalyptic. No one knows for sure as the accounts covering last year still haven't be published, but our existing debts + Covid issues + ongoing immovable liabilities (ie. Deeney/Gray PL wages) indicate it would have been horrendous. I personally think the approach to next season will be primarily reliant on loans. I expect some of those to cost us a fee, so it's not about scrapping around for freebies, but I suspect the first aim is to use another year of PL money - which will be below the norm don't forget because of Covid - to pay down some debts and put us on a surer footing in the event we go straight back down. And the last question I'd say has an 'it depends' answer. Every club is different. Pozzo's approach has been to rack up debts to try to accelerate the club's progression as a PL club. A relegation, that should really never have happened given the objective quality of our squad, ended up putting us in massive peril. Other clubs don't take that approach. While there's not a hint of it, I have to say my sincere hope at this point is with promotion all but in the bag Pozzo can attract a buyer for the club with deeper pockets than him and he can head off into the sunset with our grateful thanks for an eventful few years and Scott Duxbury.
It's probably not worth worrying about what would have been had we fail promotion this season (although not quite there yet). However I think Gino would have learnt a very harsh lesson and I expect that next season we may see a change in approach a little. I think we have a good chance of finding some decent players for reasonable prices, particularly as clubs in France and Italy have suffered greatly financially due to the pandemic, it will be a bit of a buyers market. I think that Deeney's remaining year will be paid up as he will be of no use to us as player any more. Gray on the other hand will probably be a back up and stay for his remaining year.
Accounts aren't out but I'd imagine closer to apocalyptic. We HAVE to go down the smarter route this time - let's work on the sustainable model of buying players to actually develop and sell for a higher fee. No more Andre Gray/Deeney/Dawson style signings. Players that will appreciate in value and with high potential from lesser leagues. There is little point battling to be a top half team as it almost always ends in implosion as you rack up older players on huge wages and little resale value.
One thing I’ve never been fully clear about our finances is the nature of the debt. You don’t get PL prize money until the competition has been completed, which is of course a year after you actually get promoted. Pozzo isn’t cash rich so like any club in the same position surely the only choice if you want to make a fist of staying up is to borrow against future revenue, which means taking on debt? Surely then you’re always having to borrow against future revenues all the time so you’ll constantly be in debt to the tune of your future revenue? Two things, different owners aside what would be the alternative? And secondly, is our debt purely debt secured against future income (so parachute payments at the start of this season) and future income from already agreed transfers, or do we also have debt which is just pure debt, not secured on anything guaranteed?
I don't think that's quite right. The prize money (the bit relating to league position) comes at the end of the year but the rest of the PL dosh is paid in installments through the season I believe as it's largely known at the outset. Otherwise every club would have massive cash flow issues.
This summer it's KEY to get Deeney & Gray off the books! Supposedly earning £150k a week between them! A reset is needed regardless of whether we went up or not. Wouldn't surprise me to see us go in for a few Championship players this summer (Grimes, Toney, Olise etc if Brentford, Swansea & Reading fail in the play-offs). Sounds like the Young deal is done. I think we could also see a few come in from Udinese. Keeping Sarr is paramount as he's irreplaceable with a small budget (even with a big budget you could argue). Palarse have managed to stave off relegation for many years now as a one man team. I am looking forward to seeing what we do this summer. I guess we saw in our first Premier League season under the Pozzo regime we relied on free transfers and cheap signings (Jurado, Britos, Behrami, Holebas).
Fair enough, I assumed it was all paid at the end as it’s mostly based on things that are unknown until the league finishes, but I guess there is also a guaranteed element too.
If we don't go up, every saleable asset will be sold. We could probably service the debt through that plus the parachute payments. We'd be threadbare after this though and would be back to square one as a club. A similar position to the one we were before the takeover. I'm not taking promotion for granted, even now, but if we do go up then we'd have escaped a bullet financially. I don't expect Watford to spend big though. They still need to consolidate and get the big earners off the wage big. We'd probably have to be run as a Championship club, in terns of budget next season. Having said that, I believe we could create a side capable of staying up, even on modest means. We will have to sign a good striker though, which will be crucial. Bring in Cucho, maybe bring back Geri (injury permitting), Ashley Young. Even with that we do need to improve the midfield. We lost our mainstays in Capoue and Doucoure, so there is a void which needs filling. Another CD at the level of Sierralta wouldn't go amiss either.
Add Ake on loan to that list & I'd say that was 80% success rate, and the one big signing, Capoue, was a major success. Hopefully we can do as well again.
I've had a look at our summer window after the last promotion and it was actually pretty good: Prodl, Holebas, Capoue, Behrami, Nyom, Guedioura, Ake and Britos were all very good signings and relatively cheap Hopefully Udinese have a player or two we can pick up and we make better use of the loan market this time.
One way to be more sustainable is for all players have to have relegation clauses in their contracts, after all who/what gets you relegated other than the players, if they are good enough someone else can buy them in the event of relegation for the right price!
The age old problem with that is that if one other club is after that player, they’ll just offer them a contract without relegation clauses. Or the player will just flat out refuse to accept it. Sadly it’s a romantic notion that a player would accept a relegation clause because they believe enough in their own ability, they’ll always be looking for the best contract they can get, and the most guaranteed £££££ first and foremost.
Sounds like one of those reforms the football governance review should be looking at. To ensure sustainability, relegation wage reduction clauses should be in every English football contract as a standard measure.
Yeah absolutely, that would help massively. As it is relegation clauses are no different to wages, there will always be clubs who will offer more wages and there will always be clubs who will offer contracts without relegation clauses.
We need to invest in the same places as before: 1) Cover at the fullback positions. We have dross behind Masina and Femenia is very questionable at the PL level. Playing the likes of Cathcart at FB is suicide. 2) We need a "keymaster" an attacking midfielder who makes the right unlocking pass. Does anyone really believe that Chalobah, Cleverley and Gosling - as critical as they were for us this season, should start week in and week out in the PL? That they'll get the ball where it needs to be for whoever the forwards are? 3) A forward. Could be a younger aspirational type of player like Toney, but we need more there to help out (presumably) Pedro and Cucho (neither of whom is really a centre-forward). All the above presumes of course that we: A) Divest ourselves of Gray, Troy, Perica, Navarro, Lazaar, presumably Success on a loan somewhere and perhaps one of the older centre-halves. B) Retain Sarr and bring over Cucho It's easy to write all this down, much harder to understand what it does to the finances and make it happen.
Hard to tell until the accounts are released but I am not sure our situation was as apocalyptic as many are making out or at least as apocalyptic as most clubs would have had to grapple with if dealing with the twin blows of relegation and lost revenues due to covid. Should we get relegated again, there is unlikely to be a pandemic or other act of God causing such a significant revenue loss (though I suppose the threat of some sort of breakaway league could generate such a loss). Everyone keeps pointing to Deeney and Gray’s wages - and certainly those resources could and should have been put to better use in recent seasons - but throughout our time in the PL we had one of the lowest wage bills, and one of the best wage bill: revenue ratios in the division. Bournemouth will be f*cked if they don’t go up as they were already running themselves at the financial limit before these twin body blows. I think relegation release clauses certainly are one way to protect ourselves. But they’re not costless either. It’s not simply “oh I can’t believe they forgot to include them.” When negotiating these sorts of contract there is a trade off: if you want a player to accept a 50% wage decrease should a fairly likely eventuality occur, you need to compensate them with a higher wage or a longer contract or a hefty survival bonus. If you think that the player will likely be saleable in the event of relegation (an it was reasonable to assume that for many of our players - with the club understandably not factoring covid) then that relegation release clause may not be worthwhile. Recruiting younger option is a really appealing route. Those players often are more ambitious, have lower wage demands, and a couple of good seasons can see them increase their value hugely. We already have a lot of PL experience in the squad so don’t have the same need as when we got promoted to bring in some experienced heads. Plus this summer will be a great buyers market.
I am a qualified accountant and I will put it on record that Watford getting promoted is good from a strictly financial viewpoint.
Hopefully Udinese have a player or two we can pick up and we make better use of the loan market this time.[/QUOTE] They have an absolutely brilliant midfielder in Rodrigo Javier De Paul. Problem is think Liverpool and Man U were after him at over £30 mill in Jan so won't be coming to us but if he did he'd be a great player in Midfield
As of June 19 we had £80m of debt secured against the ground/players and any other asset going-so TV money. We also owed £50m in outstanding transfer fees Subsequent to that year end we entered into a loan agreement with Barclays-amount not known-secured against TV money alone Then again in September 20 we refreshed that loan agreement with Barclays -again amount not known against TV money payable in 2021 season (parachute money potentially) Then last month we borrowed against the transfer fee for Pereyra The provider of the £80m debt as at June 19 retains their security so reasonable to assume we still owe something As to what we owe in total will only be known as at June 2020 when those accounts are eventually filed. What we currently owe can only be guessed when those accounts are filed
