Asprilla is to play the rest of the season with the U21’s, on Bilic’s orders. He also said he can be called up to the first team at any time.
Crap decision, he'll learn nothing in the U21s as the level of football is terrible. If Bilic didn't want to use him then he should have been loaned out.
Seems more like a case of Bilic trying to prove a point to Gino because he had to use him, so he’s completely thrown the baby out with the bath water and packed him off to the youth team instead.
So he’s going to spend the season flitting between the ressies and the first team - not sure why that’s an issue. Pretty standard approach for young players. Beef him up a bit and get ready for a promotion push next season.
To be fair at the moment the only reports seem to be Colombian media rather bizarrely quoting Three Counties Radio! Be interesting to see what the actual quotes are - if Bilic has said that he'll train with the first team but might not make every matchday squad so will play games with the u23s to retain match sharpness, don't see an issue with that, really.
Oh look, it was a load of ******** and there was no need to rush to judgement on Bilic over it... What a surprise! https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/s...olombian-youngster-watford-first-team-player/
He’s still travelling and was with the squad yesterday. I’d give him a go - our forward players are woeful currently and he can’t do any worse.
Definitely add some creativity. Disappointed he seems to have been dumped. Will be here next season whilst others won’t be too .
And that is probably why he’s being protected. It isn’t uncommon for young lads to be in the squad and then taken out for a while. I’d rather the club do what is best for his longer term prospects rather than overuse him now because the likes of Sarr and Davis aren’t performing. This season will fizzle out and we can then rid ourselves of so much dross we have and then rebuild. I expect Asprilla is a big part of the rebuild.
It's weird though, he's not some 16/17 year old kid, he's 18/19, but hasn't got a sniff in ages, and when he was last playing, it was mostly cameos off the bench. Now that we look pretty well stocked in midfield, it's not as if he has to play every minute, but he'd be a fantastic option off the bench, but he's not even being afforded that opportunity, it's strange to me
So still a young player lacking experience and playing in a new country really. Maybe needs to be better physically which might come over time.
I get his age, but for me he's never made any glaring errors that make me think he's not ready. His default is bang average, just like the rest of them. What he can do on occasions though is completely split defenses, and would have been a far more effective sub yesterday than the hopeless tactic of throwing all your strikers on
I hope you're right. My fear is that Sarr won't fetch as much as Gino expects and Asprilla is thrown into the sales bin.
If he is being thrown into the sales bin, why bother playing him at all? Suspect that it's just a case of neither manager fancying him, unfortunately the place he'd slot best into happens to be occupied by the best player in the team...
Porto apparently had scouts at the Colombia U20 game against Wales the other day with Asprilla the main player being monitored. Not watched the clips yet but apparently he bossed everything.
Lol, Porto's record transfer fee paid is €20mil - we'd probably ask them to at least match, if not exceed that to consider selling so soon. And would they really do that?!
Suppose it depends how bad our financial situation is if we don't go up? I'm not sure we've got that many players that can command 8 figure fees and so for the right deal with payments up front I can see a way to Pozzo selling Asprilla.
Pretty sure we bought him for £3m which would roughly convert to €3.5m so I imagine someone got their wires crossed and now it's spread.
Don’t play him or Kone again this season, get them some weights and some whey protein and see where they are in July.
At a different club? Read something about if we don't go (which we aren't..) Kone might get moved onto Udinese.
