Who Can We Realistically Get Rid Of This Summer?

Well, we certainly have a lot of dead wood in the squad, but who can we actually manage to shift, and for how much (if anything?)

Navarro is supposedly on over £30k and other than an assist for Success yesterday, has proven not good enough for the Championship. Anyone in the Segunda Division who needs an average full-back?

I imagine Pussetto is back to Udinese permanently, hopefully for the £7m we paid for him, but what of Success? With what little he's played this season, and with how long he'd been out for, is he still enough of a 'wildcard' that someone will believe they can get a tune out of? Penaranda is probably a lost cause now isn't he?

Deeney is staying in perpetuity of course, but has Gray done enough to convince some Championship manager to take a punt on him? Perica hasn't played much of a part, but surely he's been lively enough in that time to convince someone either in the EFL or in Europe

What about any of the squad members who couldn't quite nail down a first XI place for whatever reason? Do we see any of the likes of Foster, Cathcart, Kabasele, Wilmot or Gosling go?

 

I saw Giaretta said there wouldn’t be complete upheaval. I remember the last time we went up we literally disposed of a lot of players who go us there. Don’t think that’ll happen this time round. A few obvious players to get off the books. Lazaar and Sanchez look like they won’t be retained, Navarro & Perica barely got minutes so you’ll imagine they’ll be moved on. Peñaranda time is up, Success arguably also. Perhaps one of Gray and Deeney, more likely the former. Loan moves for Dele-Bashiru, Hungbo and perhaps Wilmot? Quina and Cucho returning, decision needs to be made on what to do with them.

 

There should be a few Champ clubs willing to take a punt on Success, some may even pay us £1mil-2mil for him or accept him in part-exchange for someone. There's still a player in there somewhere if given reasonable game time at that level.

I'd sell Quina if a decent offer comes in for him.

There'd be Championship takers for Cathcart on a nominal fee.

Gosling might be useful still, but we should only use him next season unless completely essential, or just for cup games. Otherwise he could be another which Champ clubs would happily take in part-exchange or for a nominal fee.

Wilmot will probably be loaned out again before we consider any permanent offers, unless someone like Swansea fail to get promoted but still offer us around £3mil for him in the summer.

Kabasele is a strange one, he was our best CB in our last PL season with supposedly other PL clubs looking at him, and he started this season well on the whole, but maybe Munoz will continue to trust T-E ahead of him in the pecking order. I'd still happily keep him as 3rd or 4th choice CB depending on whether we also sign another partner for Sierralta, but the club may be tempted to sell if a decent offer comes in for him (maybe around £4mil), which there could well be from somewhere.

Perica will go back to Belgium or maybe somewhere like Eredivisie, either on loan or for a small fee.

Navarro Segunda division.

There'd be Champ takers for Gray on loan, but only if we were to probably subsidise 3/4s of his wages. Similarly for Deeney. If a mid-table Champ club like Forest were still willing to take on Murray after we saw what he couldn't do, then there'll surely be takers for those two.

This may not be popular, but if a decent side came in with a £10mil+ offer for JP which we could then use instead on someone capable of making more of an immediate impact on the left-wing then I'd consider it. He's a prospect who I'm not sure we can afford to be patient enough with while PL survival will be so important and if he continues to look so off the pace and ineffective for a while. He could end up getting more minutes at a club in the PL or La Liga who won't be in as precarious position as we probably will be most of next season.

 

Considering we paid up to 10m euros (inc add-ons) for him it would take significantly more than £10m for us to even begin to consider selling.

 

Agree with most of that apart from JP. I think he's going to become one hell of a player. He probably wont get as many minutes next season but he's one I'd be desperate to keep.
Talking of left sided forwards my boy has do a write up on Nordsjaelland v FC Copenhagen. He has said Nordsjaelland have the Danish leagues version of Raheem Sterling. Kamaldeen Sulemana so far from what he's shown me he looks the absolute bollox. Glides past people for fun, far from the finished product but looks very exciting.

 

Deeney - We will not be able to shift Deeney who will hang around next year like a bad smell. Demanding to start despite putting up by far and a way the worst numbers of any striker in the championship. Just got to accept we have a 100k a week hole in our finances for him sadly.

Gray - Think this will be curtains for Gray. He only has a year left on his deal so the club will probably be more willing to just sell him at a cut price and subsidise some of his wages. Of our four ***** strikers, he is probably marginally more useful than Success, Deeney and Perica but it is a low bar.

Success - will probably go out on loan. With how much we spent on him, and how little we would likely get currently, it is probably worth loaning him out and at least trying to allow him to put himself in the window. Hopefully it is the a northern championship club where he has **** all else to do but focus on his football but they will no doubt loan him to some Spanish party town like Malaga.

Perica - will go to a secondary league like Belgium or Holland where he can actually score goals. About as unsuited to English football as Pussetto.

Wilmot - surely goes out on loan. Clear Xisco thinks he is *****, but Wilmot will no doubt out last Xisco and he is still a decent championship quality CB and at 21 has a lot of years to develop.

Navarro - is still stealing wages for another 2 years. That salary is probably 10x what he is worth to a Segunda club so I suspect we are stuck with him on loan and covering most of his wages.

Kabasele - I think he will take the starting spot from Troost-Ekong. Has too many brain farts, but T-E isn't immune from them.

Quina - is an interesting one. Had lots of chances and not taken them. This season I thought he would do what Olise did but he had very little impact. I do think there is a player in there, but it seems at the moment he requires a team and system built around him and he isn't good enough for that. If we could cash in and reinvest some of it into Olise I think we should be all over it.

Gosling / Cathcart - All seem like good eggs and solid 4th / 5th choices. Can't imagine they are on massive wages so no need to replace them.

 

Sarr. 1 million to Crystal Palace.

 

We won’t be able to shift Deeney or Gray. Nobody will pay them what we do, unless Gray can be tempted by a long term deal elsewhere on lower wages, but realistically he is better off being a free agent next summer.

hopefully someone will take Success, Navarro, Peneranda, Cathcart and Perica although we will probably need to give them away to attract interest.

The squad is riddled with expensive dead wood which is hard to shift.

 

The initial fee seemed only £3mil, I doubt we've paid anywhere near to £10m yet.

I prob should've typed closer to £15m though.

 

http://sportwitness.co.uk/watford-rearrange-deal-striker-set-pay-transfer-2023/ - reportedly we renegotiated the deal recently that will take the fee beyond the €10m mark

 

Not the most helpful/insightful answer in the world, but I think so much of this just comes down to random chance and a collision of factors this summer - there have already been fairly convincing arguments/scenarios laid out in this thread for seeing either Gray, Success and/or Deeney managing to be offloaded (and personally the Glenn Murray thing was quite persuasive for me), as well as for how it will be impossible to shift them, but it will really just depend on how much we are prepared to take a financial hit relative to what we 'think we should get' for the good of the squad/our survival hopes, and how much any other football league club suddenly believes they need one of those players and can coax some kind of the potential form out of them that we have never been able to.

That itself will come down to club ownership (Forest and Derby, for example), transfer fee/wage availability, whether a new manager might be coming in, and myriad other factors. If we want to get rid of them, we basically need the stars to align, but it's not necessarily THAT unlikely that they would, at least in, say, one of their cases.

 

Why is selling JP even being mentioned? The kid is going to be sensational. After De Paul and Sarr he's next in line to be sold by Gino for a huge profit in a few years.

 

Hmm, strange.

 

Pozzos paid £300k for Success.

 

Toney was the biggest transfer in the EFL last summer wasn't he? Can't think of many others who went for anything more than a million, we have to accept that we're gonna take huge losses on Success and Gray, probably subsidising a big chunk of their wages too if we are to finally be rid of them

 

Got their fingers burnt on that. Could have got a 2 bedroom apartment in Watford as a much better investment for the money.

 

Probably because without Prem money we'd have been ****ed?

 

Talking about selling Wilmot for £3m and Pedro for £10m is absolute insanity.

They are the complete opposite of the sort of players we should be looking to get the f**k out.

 

Absolutely no way we should sell those two, JP will have a part to play in the front 4 next season, Wilmot won't be playing regularly in the Prem, but with a sensible loan next season, he can come back and be a key player for us the season after. If there's any of our youngster we maybe should consider selling, it'd be Quina, been given his chances this season, but whereas Wilmot did little wrong, Quina was very frustrating

 

You can debate what fee we should get, but the point is that I don't think JP looks as if he'll be able to contribute much to keeping us up in the next couple of seasons, and ultimately us managing to get reestablished in the PL will likely be worth much more to us than whatever fee we could receive for him. I also think he's missing something that made Richarlison so successful and it's not a certainty his stock will keep rising next season.

With Wilmot it's not clear he'll ever really be a PL player, and he's certainly not currently ready for it either.

 

The only thing JP definitely won't be next season is a prolific scorer, as a player, I see no reason he can't hold his own on the wing or in a #10 role. I don't know if he'll be able to hold either role down, but in both positions, and maybe as a main striker from time to time, he'll get games next season, and I fancy he'll be alright

 

Pedro will offer something in the Premier League. Was clear this season he had burned out and needed a rest, but he's only going to get better. To sell him now when it's clear his potential is so huge would be absolutely mental, both in terms of losing out on what he can offer on the pitch in the next few years and also the much bigger money we would almost certainly be missing out on.

I know you don't like Wilmot but he is 21. That's young by any footballers standard, but as a centre back that really is the bottom end infancy of his career. He needs a season playing week in, week out in the Championship. We handled him miserably this season and completely stunted his development, as we do with almost every young player.

 

I'd keep Quina - he's still young and I'm not satisfied he's had enough of a chance.

I really, really hope Gray and Success leave somehow. I've seen more than enough of them. It'll be interesting to see which of the Champ playoff teams don't make it through. Danjuma? Muff will be fackity facked with another season in the championship and will be more than keen to sell.

I hope for Troy's sake he doesn't embarrass himself in the Prem. I think he needs to be the big fish in the pond. A final glory, glory bit part season with Birmingham (perhaps even threatening the playoffs!) before bowing out to the media career he's intent on building and great. The object of ridicule and pity playing out of his depth and looking every bit the past it old croc on global TV doesn't do him or us any good. Someone should tell him that.

Perica I don't care about. Could be argued he hasn't had a proper chance yet and a run of games. I wouldn't be dismayed if he was kept on as a back up.

I agree with the above about 1st choice CB pairing in the prem being Kabs and Sierralta. The former is a much, much better player than T-E.

Is there another season in old Crapcart? I suppose he's the only one who will know. If so, keep on as squad member - experienced and adaptable. Invaluable on the bench and for cup games etc.

Ashy Laaz finally got to grips yesterday and put in a fine display - only grudgingly accepted by most. Unfortunately in football now, you don't get half a dozen games to get up to speed. He hadn't even played for ages. Well it looks like he's gone already, but if I were in charge I'd keep him. Decent back up.

The full back situation needs sorting out altogether. Both sides I'd say. It would seem they don't like Ngakia for some reason, although he's seemed mainly fine when I've seen him.

Please could we sign someone who can accurately take set pieces and occasionally score from them? We still haven't had one of them in ages.

 

This is a key area of disagreement, I just don't think he's as much of a certainty as many others on here seem to.

I can understand why others might have different opinions on this one though, hence my acknowledgement at the beginning that I suspected it wouldn't be a popular opinion - there are a lot more unknowns in such a discussion than in one's on say whether Deeney is finished at the top level.

 

Probable-

I wouldn't sell Quina. Think it's a real possibility we let him go on the cheap (around the £5 million mark) and we live to regret it!

Cucho to be sold for maybe £10 million, to a (upper - mid-table) La Liga team.

Pussetto won't be back. Hopefully we get some more funds as a result.

Realistically-

Perica-loan to a Championship team, or back to Italy

Lazaar-Release

Sanchez-release

Wilmot- loan to a championship team on the premise he plays very regularly for their first team. He won't get enough game time otherwise and may stagnate.

Peneranda- Will go somewhere for a couple of million. Criminal waste of talent.

Hungbo to go on loan to the Championship

Less likely

Success (loan) to Turkey or Udinese, with a view to buy

Navarro- Either, let go for nominal fee to a Lower La Liga team. Or release, pay up contract, if as high as being stated.

Extremely unlikely

Gray- Loan out with a view to selling, to a Championship team. Hopefully we only pay maybe 50% of his wages.

Deeney- Agrees to a pay cur, with some kind of ambassadorial role, or youth team coaching role (extended contract, but expect to play a minimal role on the pitch). This is extremely unlikely though.
Maybe an MLS team might take him?

 

Sema should get minutes ahead of him on the wing and even then Sema should only be 2nd choice next season. JP offers even less defensively in a #10 role than Zinc, I'd be surprised if we were able to risk that very often.

 

Absolutely. I maintain that JP has a higher ceiling than Sarr.

 

Funny timing - he was linked with Man Utd and Ajax in the press only just this morning.

 

MLS is a very quick league, with one of the most notable features being just how much every player runs constantly (sometimes to the detriment of intelligent decision-making...) and it's come a long way in the past five or so years since the City Football Group popped up with NYCFC and it received that famous influx of old pros of the likes of Pirlo, Lampard, Gerrard and Villa (who performed brilliantly for several years) that marked the last hurrah of MLS as a retirement league. Players that go there these days are mostly either that bit younger and more impactful in terms of the stage of their career (rather than necessarily exact calendar age) and far bigger and better players, a la Giovinco at Toronto, Nani at Orlando, and now Chicharito at the Galaxy, or up and coming/semi-proven South American players from the Argentinian/Brazilian/Surinamese leagues.

I don't think there's a team in the league who will be prepared to gamble their precious Designated Player or general allocation money on a player who never showed they were a top striker at the top level, has barely scored goals from open play in three to five years, can hardly move, and can't play in most modern formations, to be honest.

It's probably the most likely destination in which the fabled 'Troy as a No.10' could come into being, but again, we go back to the immobility as a major issue. Besides, if he couldn't be bothered to remain professional and therefore in shape season to season playing for a Premier League team, do we really think his new fastidious approach will stick if he ends up in MLS?

On top even of that, the MLS season is already underway and Troy is clearly still very much not fit. Even if he does complete his miraculous off/pre-season fitness turnaround, we're weeks to months away from that, and he's even spoken himself before about how long and what it takes for him to get back up to fitness. I just don't see it as a starter, unfortunately.

 

Genuinely don't know what to do with Quina, a year to go on his contract, has had his moments this season, but hasn't overly impressed in either the Championship or La Liga. A talent for sure, but needs games (realistically we should have loaned him out last season rather than have him rot on the bench) and probably won't get them in the Prem, do we give him a new deal and loan him out in the hope he'll come good, or sell now while we can get something for him?

Cucho is another interesting one, he's done OK in La Liga for three very average teams, could be a decent option across the front 3, I wouldn't mind giving him a go, but could we do better?

Perica's contract is running out in 2022, sell him to a team in a second rate European league, probably won't get much for him (certainly not as much as we could have had he played regularly and done alright), but every little helps I suppose

I suppose some suckers will have hope they can get something out of Success, but do they have the money? He does have Fenerbahce or Galatasary written all over him, do they have enough money? Would he be of use to Udinese?

No idea how long Navarro has on his current (supposedly rather lucrative) deal, but he played 4 games for relegated Leganes last season, I suspect it'll be a pay-off job

Again, Gray has a deal to 2022, a loan just means we kick the can down the line and get nothing for him. I can guarantee there'll be plenty of Championship clubs who would fancy having him, I'm sure a few of them would be willing to part with a few mil for him, but wages are the sticking point

Deeney is stuck here, I don't see any way of us selling him now, we just have to suck it up and just hope he doesn't prove too disruptive an influence behind the scenes

 

Anyone giving any credence to that US website of salaries that reckons Navarro is on more money than Kiko needs to give their head a wobble.

Kiko came on a high profile free, was one of our top targets, signed to be our starting right back after two good seasons in La Liga. Navarro we paid a small amount of money for to be a back up and had never been anything other than a bit part player at Espanyol. And quite why an American website would have any inside knowledge on the salaries of our players is also a mystery...

 

The only players I would be disappointed to see leave would be Sarr, Sierralta, Hughes and J.P. The others are very “ much of a muchness “ and whilst some of them have good days they wouldn’t be missed as much as the aforementioned!

In the financial climate I wouldn’t expect to see that many movements, and will be interesting to see who goes and who stays!

 

The thing with Quina is he would, in theory, be an excellent impact sub. Is that going to be enough game time for him though? Probably not