[SIGNED perm] Rhys Healey

Never heard of the bloke (in line with most of the other posters). Given our recruiting incompetence I’ll save us all a lot of time and classify him as a Dud here and now. Feel free to requote this as he scores 15/20/25/30 goals.

 

With all due respect, I would imagine all but the most casual of football fans would have heard of him.

If he stays injury free he should hit 10-15 pretty comfortably. But that's a big IF.

 

Right. Cardiff reserve with 6 lower league loan spells , 2 long injuries and a couple of good seasons in the 2nd French division.

Who wouldn’t have heard of him? Comfortably 15 goals in championship.

 

He scored 38 over two seasons in Ligue 2, hardly one good season. He also got 11 in 18 in league one the season before that, or are we as Watford too big to even bother glancing what's going on down there?

Not to mention his winner away at Monaco was little everywhere on social media at the time.

There's plenty of reasons to bash the club at the moment, but complaining at EVERYTHING they do illegitimates the arguments against the genuinely bad.

 

So you're judging him purely based on the club signing him, rather than any of his attributes/record/what people who *have* watched him think of him?

I'm not one to follow obscure leagues but I noticed him at MK and remember us being linked with him a while back. He's not exactly a nobody, especially for a club like Watford. The comments above read like someone on a Man City forum.

 

He was discussed extensively on the suggestions thread in 2022. So I’d have thought that most forum members would be familiar with him. Additionally, I like many others, like to keep track of homegrown players playing (and excelling) abroad.

If you have concerns about his injury record, I’d understand. But Ligue 2 is a pretty good league and probably up there with highest standard of league that we could reasonably afford to sign a recent top scorer in the division from so I don’t know why you’re dismissing his goals there.

 

Quite a few people were already discussing him as a possible transfer target on here both last summer and in the build-up to this transfer window, including @YellowKicks @VR94 @LeedsOrn @Hogg-DEENEY!!! @reids and myself.

e.g.

https://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/brits-abroad.60229/#post-3236121
https://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/cameron-archer.59435/page-4#post-3157709
https://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/transfer-talk-suggestions.54511/page-277#post-3165207

Don't confuse your ignorance with that of others.

 

I’ve heard his insta account has ‘Goodbye Toulouse’ on it.

 

Never look at transfer suggestion thread. Equivalent of listening to 5 self important blokes in a pub.

Happy to have it thrown back in my face but I’m calling him a low budget dud. 11 goals for MK Dons and some French lower league goals doesn’t change that.

 

Hopefully it doesn't also have "Down in the Sewer" on it !

 

See post above. Why would anyone waste time reading what you think about a random player in the French second division?

Anyway we will find out in a few months so no need for you all to get so upset about it!

Dud.

 

Damn statistics!

 

I’d rather read the opinions of @lowerrous and others who have watched Healey and are familiar with his quality and the standard of Ligue 2 than read your opinions which seem to be that he must be crap because we’ve signed him.

If you don’t want to sign a player who has a good goal record at Ligue 2 and League One, what kind of player is sufficiently proven for you (who is within our price range)?

 

But you said:

So given that you've supposedly never looked at the transfer suggestion thread, you clearly lacked the knowledge and ability to make such an assertion.

I was pointing out that despite your claim, many on here had heard of him well prior to last week.

 

Yes why take the opinions of people who have watched him play football, and those who work within football (reids), when you can write him off based entirely on the fact that you don't like the current owners? Logic!

 

Come on, mate, get a grip of yourself!

 

Yeah hold my hands up here. I’m genuinely shocked that some people on here have time in their lives to know about French league 2 players in depth.

 

But also, you replied to one of my posts in the transfer suggestions thread at the start of May, and in total have made 16 posts in the thread this year alone - so you must look at it at least occasionally...

https://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/transfer-talk-suggestions.54511/page-336#post-3235687

 

Yeah sorry. Approximated a handful of posts in a 350 page thread with zero. Forgot it was you I was dealing with. Guilty as charged!

 

You spend a lot of time on here for someone so unwilling to Google ‘Ligue 2 top scorers.’

Ligue 2 has had some good strikers for a good few years now (this year Maja, Krasso and Mikautadze are all excellent) but off the top of my head I couldn’t name the Serie B or Bundesliga 2 top scorers. I think Ligue 2 is now the strongest second division other than the Championship.

It seems that your position is that if you haven’t heard of the player they must not be good. And that you don’t have the time to consider leagues like Ligue 2. That leaves us with a very small pool of players.

 

My position is that our club has a long and illustrious history of signing poor players. Given the (in my view) underwhelming CV of this guy I am predicting he will be another Manaj, Acuna, Geijo, Bayo. If I am wrong you can have a good chuckle at your superior knowledge of this particular individual.

 

Perhaps just lay off the absurd hyperbole to begin with?

 

Definitely agree - Ligue 2 has been a prime league for cheap talent for a few years now.

Few of the names to have left the league in the last 4/5 seasons:

Gourna-Douath (Red Bull Salzburg) - €13m
Hwang (Notts Forest) - €4m
Adli (Bayer Leverkusen) - €7.50m
Panzo (Notts Forest) - €2m
Sangare (PSV) - €7m
Guirassy (Rennes) - €15m
Manu Kone (Gladbach) - €9m (now linked with Liverpool + Chelsea)
Mbuembo (Brentford) - €6m
Agoume (Inter) - €4.5m

Toulouse are an incredibly clever team as well - they're owned by a data company (who have just bought AC Milan as well) that has an incredible array of clever guys working for them that lead to a promotion a year after they bought the club. This season on their return to Ligue 1 they stayed up comfortably as well as winning the French cup to qualify for Europe. They use data for scouting and have unearthed lots of gems in their data scouting techniques that have lead to players joining much bigger teams (Ajax, Lille, Gladbach etc).

 

I’ve not been the most positive person on here lately with regards to the personnel and direction of the club etc, but I’m pleased with this (tbc) signing. In my opinion it’s a good start to the new Manga recruitment regime and he deserves credit for pulling it off.

I’m interested to see how a 5 ft 11 striker will fit into our supposed new playing style.

 

I see you remain unwilling to answer this question from LeedsOrn:

"what kind of player is sufficiently proven for you (who is within our price range)?"

I am indeed curious which players would satisfy you if signed? Ideally specific names of players.

The last time I remember you saying what "exactly the profile of signing we should be making" was it was Imran Louza.

 

Bayo scored more goals than the other three players combined. I think were it not for the fee/Bayat connection, he’d be viewed differently.

Acuna and Geijo were signed what a decade ago. Not sure how relevant they are. We’ve signed lots of duds and lots of excellent players since then. You have to judge them based on their record. Not the clubs.

 

Not sure what he's done to make people think it's a good signing. Apart from what looms like a good spell in France, he only seemed to score at a lower level than Champ in the UK and wasn't deemed good enough for Cardiff.

Another Fletcher for me.

 

All well then you will be able to poke fun at me in 6 months. I won’t even hold it to a high standard. 10 goals in the season or even he plays 80% of our games and contributes well all round I’ll concede I was wrong and he was a good signing.

Bayo remains d@gshit.

 

Tbf Cardiff were in the PL at the time and then needed to sell to balance the books when they got relegated. I agree he's unproven in the Championship, but he's at least familiar with the English game and has scored consistently for the last 4 seasons he's played in and should be pretty much in his peak age wise. For a free signing I think it's a pretty decent move.

 

I just clocked that you also mentioned Hauge in that post - who has been doing worse in the Belgian league this season than Bayo.

You weren't alone at the time in being keen on signing him mind.

 

My fear is it’s ‘ready to sail’ in the same fashion as the Mary Rose.

 

It's a good opening signing. Not tainted by Bayat or from an obscure league. Homegrown, good age range and reasonable contract length. Good record in front of goal. Obviously question mark is 2x ACL in same knee, but he has a full pre-season ahead to strengthen it and transfer is arranged before it started than part way which is only good.

We need more signings. Plenty more. But it's positive.

 

It's a no-lose transfer. Encouraged that he made it onto the pitch before the end of the season so shouldn't be a Hause situation.

 

Lets not forget that Hause did make it onto the pitch for us....briefly...he looked good !!

 

Think it will be 2 with an option rather than 3 outright too.