According to AL, we want to loan 19 yo LCB Antonio Tikvik from Udinese and send out Pollock on loan in this window also and Charleroi being the likely destination. Deal for Tikvik will depend on a work permit and won’t be completed until after the QPR match. Sounds like he has an inflated opinion of himself, so should get on well with Hoet. These are his quotes after signing for Udinese. Tikvic described himself as “a tactically astute player” who is “good in possession”. He added: “I’ve got a great left foot. Despite my height, I’ve got good ball skills and I’m quick.
What has Mattie done to deserve that? Rather than getting him a loan to aid his development we're pandering to the Bayat Bros again.
It seems a sensible enough move for him to me! Not defending the Bayat Bros, but surely it's possible for Pollock to get some useful experience and the Bayats to profit at the same time? They are scumbags, but we have benefited from the partnership from time to time!
Would give us a much needed option to rest Hoedt from time to time, but I am a bit hesitant about loaning in a player who is far from the finished product and who would probably only come in as backup
Which way round are the two possible transfers? Tivik has made 1 appearance for Udinese and 18 for Bayern Munich's second team so I can't imagine he's seriously challenging Hoedt, Porteous or Sierrelta in our side. Just wondering if we want to get Pollock game time so are loaning him out with Tivik coming in as 4th choice here, if any of it's true.
Personally, I think it makes sense. We do need a backup to Hoet, but it has to be someone who won’t kick up a fuss if he’s not starting every week and at a level where he’ll be useful. Not sure if he’s as good as Pollock, but on the surface it seems to give us a better balance.
Doesn't sound like he'd be an adequate back up replacement for Hoedt, probably less adequate than Pollock is.
If he's 1.95m and left footed as listed on the internet he certainly fits the profile as backup for Hoedt more than Pollock does. Sounds reasonable. Just need a backup for Livermore and we pretty much have two players covering each position.
So cynical. Could it not be that we've thought long and hard about what's best for Pollock's development and it just so happened of the hundreds of possible clubs that Mehdi Bayat's was the best fit and just a further coincidence that we'll have to bung a couple of hundred thousand to Mogi to make it happen?
But we already have Sierralta and Porteous as options for the right-sided CB slot. The issue is more we have no one capable of filling in for Hoedt given that Pollock and the rest aren't left footed. He won't be required for too many minutes necessarily anyway. Pollock doesn't really get any minutes here at the moment and needs more senior football.
If he's going to be playing as a first choice CB there then I don't see any problem with this whatsoever. Pollock has already proven himself to a reasonable degree in League One, and ideally he'd be testing himself with regular football in the Championship now. However, I doubt there will be many Champ teams willing to take a player of his profile from us and give him lots of minutes between now and the end of the season. A lot of the Belgian league is between Championship and League One standard, so that sounds about right for where Pollock is at present. It's also worth noting that Bayo went on loan to Charleroi in the second half of last season and has been a better player for us this season since then.
It's the constant greasing of the same palms I object to rather than the status of the club. Also not sold on Bayo being particularly improved - think he's always been ok.
Very few issues with this lad coming in and Pollock going out - on the face of it. But, my gripe is that we can rarely seem to find decent loan opportunities in England for outgoings. Baah this season is showing what can happen when you get it right - after being a regular last season for Aberdeen, I’d argue if we have any hopes at all for Pollock, we should have managed to find a loan to a bottom-end Championship/upper-end L1 side. Even if he excels at Charleroi, I’m not really sure what we gain. It also obviously reinforces the (true) belief that it’s not only Mogi that has his claws into the club when it comes to the Bayat family.
How is just loaning a player for a few months who might not even be that much of a massive asset to them be greasing palms?!
We found it necessary to pay Bayat a fee to move a player from Udinese to Watford a few years ago, so of course Pozzo's chum will get a small extraction from our impoverished club.
Pollock has already played in League One before though; the Belgian league is probably a slight step up from there. Sure it would be good to find a loan at bottom end Championship side, but which of them is going to give lots of minutes to a relatively unproven young backup Watford CB on loan?!
Usually the club taking the player on loan pays a small fee to the parent club, or cover some wages of the player. What "small extraction" do you think Bayat will take from loaning Pollock from Watford for a few months, and how?
I figure Pozzo might use the Samir model where Bayat gets involved despite there being no obvious need whatsoever?
Bayat has his claws into Watford, make no mistake. No one should libel themselves here by laying it bare - but quite simply, I’d say it’s obvious that the Bayat family will financially profit here. Transfers heading out of Watford can still line their pockets (allegedly - for legal reasons). Whether that’s for a small amount or for multi-millions - it’s still worrying and shouldn’t just be waved through.
A player will still need his representative to ratify his new contract, even if it's a loan transfer, to make sure all is above board and he's not being shafted. Similarly, the clubs will employ someone/people to make sure they're adhering to their FA's rules and laws as well as everything being legally binding between all three parties. Just because a player moves from a club essentially owned by the same family doesn't mean they can just shuffle the paperwork about on the back of a fag packet with Karen from the club shop sorting everything out. That any particular agent may be representing two or all three bodies involved may look a tad odd though, but I can only presume it's not breaking any rules regarding the practise of an agent between player & club and similarly between club & club otherwise we'd have had more transfer embargoes than you could shake a stick at over the years. That Pozzo likes to use the same agent and his pool of players/clubs way more than any other is the murky part of these transfers, not necessarily the way they're completed.
Clearly. But Samir had his own agent for that. As for "making sure we adhere to the FA rules", do we not have the competence to do that after 100s of transfers? Isn't that what Giarretta was employed for?
We paid Samir's agent and Bayat on that deal. In that season where we spent hardly any money on players, we were seventh for agents' fees in the Premier League behind only the two Manchester clubs, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea all of whom had massive outlays. And Bayat was paid on 9 transfers that season, the vast majority of whom weren't "his" players so we also paid the player's actual agent. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck...
How did we spend £12.6m on agents fees last time we were promoted despite Louza being our biggest signing for only about £8m? He'll be paid either by Watford to complete the outgoing loan or by his brother for the incoming one (both if he's lucky!). Either way, if Pollock goes to Charleroi, he's getting a cut somewhere along the line.
If theres a f*ck ton of smoke and fire engines into double figures, do you deny there’s a fire because you can’t see the flames?
Samir had his own agent when he arrived at Watford, Renato Martinez of Roc Nation Sports. Bayat is listed as an intermediary for the club. That's far from unusual other than Bayat isn't technically employed by Watford as far as we know. BUT, on the official FA form I've linked at the end of the post, Bayat isn't listed as a subcontractor so surely that means he is contracted to the club in an official capacity. That would explain why he was involved. Also, that same year, for the Danny Rose 'new registration', two intermediaries are listed separately acting on behalf of the club, Daniel Kuraja & Claudio Vigorelli. Josh King also has two people involved. Paul Koutsoliakos (club) & Iordanis Demetriou (player & club). Pontus Dahlberg, 2 bodies. Unique Sports Management and Khalid Abdo, both listed as acting for player & club for an updated contract. It's not particularly unusual it seems, not for Watford or, looking down the list I found, for other clubs, to use more than one intermediary. It's just Bayat we don't trust so any involvement we see immediately arouses suspicion. As for saying the club should be competent after 100's of transfers, well I would have thought if competency was being shown the same people will be doing the paperwork. Because previous transfers have gone through well doesn't mean you then get someone else in to do the job, quite the opposite I'd have thought. Who knows what Giaretta was actually employed to do! Supposedly something to do with contracts at one point (though I've yet to see him listed on any deal) but I also remember reading he helped the head coach on a day to day basis, almost as a gopher. Not a 'get me a coffee, Terry' type runaround but more to do with calls in & out regarding logistics and whatever else a coach needs that would otherwise take up time better served elsewhere. Look, I'm not suggesting Bayat is healthy for Watford but your post I answered seemed to suggest to me either the transfer of Samir between Watford & Udinese didn't need any agents because of the way the clubs are linked or it's only us who has an agent listed with transfers when they're seemingly an unassociated third party. Neither point is true. This may make you & most on here a bit happier though. Between February 2nd, 2021 and January 31st 2022, Bayat is listed as an acting intermediary on 10 of 43 transfers/contract updates (extensions, terminations etc.) Between February 1st, 2022 and January 31st 2023 though, he's listed just 4 times out of 37 transactions. (Sissoko's transfer out, Louza's contract extension, Hoedt's transfer in and the Dennis transfer out.) No seemingly suspicious or unnecessary 'double' involvements either. Surely an improvement. Here's the link to ALL transfers logged with the FA between Feb 2021 - Jan 2022 (it's a pdf file) The file shows; club - player - registration type - intermediary - intermediary registration number - who they represent - subcontractor or not Watford deals are on page 7 https://www.thefa.com/-/media/files...ries/intermediary-transactions-2021-2022.ashx The link to ALL transfers logged with the FA between Feb 2022 - Jan 2023 (also a pdf file) Watford deals are on pages 14 & 15 https://www.thefa.com/-/media/files...ries/intermediary-transactions-2022-2023.ashx
I'd say that the fire would probably be where the engines are travelling to in one of the directions, and when the engines are travelling the other way then it'll be them going back to the station.
No room for sentiment, I'd love Pollock to be good enough now. But he's not. You can get away with a young forward, but not a CB. Not saying Porteous, Sierralta and Hoedt don't have a mistake in them because my GOD they do... but not starting against Chesterfield was a huge blow for him.
