[REPORTED] Okaka

Are you still sucked into the "best league in the world" hype when it comes to the prem?

 

Yes. Because it's not my money. If Liverpool sold Andy Carroll for £34m was that bad business because they lost £1m? Nope. I don't believe Okaka was worth what we paid for him the first place. Wd are aiming for a better level of player than Stefano Okaka now.

 

If people are going to use Okaka's goal scoring record for us last season as a stick to beat him with, they'd need a whole tree for Deeney's efforts:

Okaka scored a goal every 238 mins (every 2.65 games)
Excluding penalties, Deeney scored a goal every 420 mins (every 4.66 games).

Okaka's hard to characterise because he's big but skilful and not very good in the air, can sometimes be very strong but then goes down at the slightest touch, built like a brick outhouse but has a comedy high pitched voice. Having said all of that, he had by far the best goals to minutes on the pitch ratio in our squad last year. He was easily our biggest goal threat when he was actually on the pitch.

He's pretty much level with Destro (goal every 224 minutes on the pitch) and Simeone (goal every 237 mins on the pitch, excluding pens). They might be far superior in other aspects of their game (I've never seen them either of them play) but their goal output last year was pretty much the same as Okaka's on a proportional basis.

He's not great but he's easily good enough for a mid table team. Having said that, if Everton really were thinking he could replace Lukaku, they'd be in for a bit of a shock!

 

Depends on how you interpret what "the best" is... In essence, there are multiple factors that people can take into consideration when deciding what "the best" league is:

1. Anything is possible - What I mean by this is that any team can win and any team can get relegated. I'd say the Premier League is the best at this (E.g. Leicester being champions and Newcastle getting relegated)

2. Attendance - A common phrase in football is "Football is nothing without fans". The Premier League has the best attendances in the world only being matched by teams in the Bundesliga and La Liga. Even teams like Sunderland have stadium average attendances of of over 40,000 and they're now in the Championship! Then you compare that to the 800 Real Madrid "fans" that traveled to the Camp Nou for the El Clasico 2 years ago; yet that's meant to be a very big derby... Another case would be in the Serie A where the one Udinese fan travelled to watch Udinese play Sampdoria (and that was only because he had business in the city). Therefore, i'd say that the Premier League tops the attendances factor because it's very rare to see less that 1,000 people travelling to away games (even when the FA have to change match dates just so that Chelsea can play on live tv)

3. Player Quality - Now this links with your question. What other league has the national diversity and talent in the Prem? You may say La Liga has fantastic players; yet i'd say the only really good players in La Liga belong to 2-5 teams (mainly Athletico, Madrid and Barcelona) whereas in the Prem, you have quality in almost every team... Even little ol' Watford have Pereyra who was a valued Juventus player in Serie A.

4. Sponsorship and TV Rights (MONEY) - A factor that ultimately decides the other factors... Without money there ain't talent, without talent there is less coverage and with less coverage ultimately means less attendance... The Prem has all of that which is what makes it that much better than every other league in the world...

Now you can call me "bias" because I support a team that is in the Premier League. But it doesn't deter from the fact that no other league accomplishes ALL of those factors... Anything that comes close (i.e. Bundesliga, Serie A and La Liga) are still known as some of the best leagues in the world... But not the best.

So in regards to Okaka's value... Him being "average" in one of, if not thee best league in the world surely isn't such a bad thing. If by average you mean a mid-table side player; then surely he's perfect for us because that's what we primarily want as a club. Therefore, surely his value should be at least £10 million?

 

You have too much time on your hands. Is there an executive summary ?

 

There was a half time 15 minute break when typing up that reply

 

By that token, should we bring back Jurado because he played nearly every minute for a Watford team that successfully mid-table? No of course not. Not every players ability matches up with where the team ends up in the league. My sole and only point is that we should be aiming higher than the pedigree of Okaka, and if a bid comes in, it should be considered if above a certain amount. He's not going to improve on his ability at this stage in his career and what he's shown so far I would argue is not enough to be first or second choice striker for us where we are aiming for - 3rd choice, maybe.

 

No offence but that comparison is off. Jurado was a cr@ppy player. Okaka on the other hand is what others have labelled average. Whether it's average in the Watford side or average in the league, I do not know but either way, Okaka has done far more for Watford in his 18 games than Jurado in his 27

 

The main sports provider in Canada where I am currently on holiday, TSN, named Okaka's flick against Everton as one of the top 100 goals in Europe this past season. I know that's one time but he clearly has quality about him and I think with a stronger midfield next season he could really be excellent. He's had a few bad games but with the football we played last season, what striker wouldn't? I would love for him to stay personally. Much more effective than Deeney and far more skillful.

 

Deeney had a poor season and a lot of that was turning up at the start in poor condition for a footballer. The fact he has started his pre season already would suggest he knows that. Wally dropping him was probably what he needed. Okaka is a strange one. For a big bloke he's poor in the air and goes down to easily but on the flip side, he's pretty skilful and his movement off the ball is much better than Deeney's. I'm not sure either of them have the ability to score 20 goals in a season but will be happy to be proved wrong. If one of them has to go though I would prefer it to be Okaka as although they are of a similar level Deeney offers more with he does outside of playing football.

 

I wouldn't sell him. We need one or two more strikers as it is, not to replace the ones we have. He's been injured and in and out of the team, but I saw enough against Everton, West Ham and Chelsea to suggest he can be a real force if kept fit.

 

I agree with you Travis!

We should not be selling Okaka, unless we are offered silly money for him, and only then if we have brought in at least two more strikers, one to replace him and I think we need at least one more striker already.

 

Wd? Wd? Wt a kb.

 

Totally agree that we must keep Deeney and Okaka. Both are at least a serious physical nuisance to EPL defenders. Deeney must get superfit but agree we need ideally two other strikers with different attributes - pacy, tricky, clinical etc. Relying on Success, Sinclair or youngsters up front would be a serious gamble. Despite our other defensive and midfield targets, I do hope we have not forgotten about the front end. coyhs!

 

Must have missed the moment this became a spelling competition....

 

??

You miss-spelled Watford Wd?

I was wondering why the word you chose to abbreviate (that is, appeared not to be bothered to write in full) was the name of this magnificent club we support.

Seemed strange to me, so I commented. No problem with your spelling though.

 

The word was 'we'...

Easy to spell, but bigs thumbs on a little iPhone keyboard make it harder! Sorry for the outburst.

 

If the then management had applied the same criteria to Ross Jenkins in the early to mid 70s as are being applied to Okaka currently, he would have been junked years before his maturity. It is a symptom of the modern game, the money that underpins it and the overwhelming need for instant success that after a handful of games under one manager Okaka is being summarily judged as average, below average, worth keeping, worth being sold at the earliest opportunity etc.

Jenkins played under 3 managers and in those more straitened times was allowed to mature as a line leader. When I first watched Deeney, I was convinced he would never make the grade at Championship level let alone in the Premier League - then I remembered Ross.

Of course Troy has played under several more managers....

 

Personally I'd keep Okaka but I can't say I see him being as valuable to us as Ross Jenkins was!

 

Who knows? When Danny Graham was playing as striker and Troy was on the wing, I knew who the more valuable player would be to us over time...and was wrong.

 

And I would now like to retract my kb if that is convivial.

 

Yea but which one?

 

This would be bloody hilarious. They're gonna replace Lukaku with Okaka.

I guess they sound similar...

https://twitter.com/WereEvertonFC/status/884498763561263104

 

Okay. It was a joke.

 

Dusbero are you a cyber being that lives inside of WFC Forums/Twitter/the general world wide web?

 

I'm just very, very, very, very, very bored..

 

That story is as realistic as this one from the Daily Mail: