People just need to realise that now the Premier League money has gone Pozzo and his mates have lost interest. He's got no intention of helping Ismael out, all he'll care about is keeping us at a respectable level so he can sell at the first decent offer. Tough times ahead watching the more talented players leave but it's great news that this is the beginning of the end of Pozzo.
That is never going to happen. I'm surprised he even went as far as specifying the two positions we tried and failed to sign players in.
Yep - usually the word as soon as the window closes is just that we're happy with what we have. Such an admission that we're not entirely happy with what we have and failed to bring in players we wanted is more than is ever usually said.
Why the fecx would any club ever say such a thing?! They'd just be advertising to any club in the summer when they try and sign another player that they have £xmil to spend on said player, and every selling club will ask for the full amount even if the player isn't worth that much. You're in cloud cuckoo land here.
You’re right. But Val wouldn’t be jeopardising relations with any team/agents on this occasion, because we didn’t approach anyone anyways! The idea that we did, is total bollox, to save face in front of the fans. The only agent we could possibly jeopardise a relationship with is Bayat, as he’s practically the only agent our owners go to for deals, steals, bargains of the fkin century etc etc. And I doubt he’s going anywhere.. The reality is, if we hadn’t got lucky with the loan on Dennis, we would have had 0 players come in this January… and that says everything you need to know as to where our Owners stand right now.
Other than Hull and Cardiff have our rivals for 5th/6th really strengthened that much? Would we also want to be in Hull's position where they are betting the house on a play off run? Knowing that they will need to get past two of Southampton, Leeds or Ipswich. We are all unanimous in agreement that we probably needed another midfielder, but I feel like Ismael has done enough this season to be respected at his word that he's happy with what he has.
Not an entirely unreasonable set of points, but one of the main issues is this - it may be true that he's happy with what he has (I'm somewhat doubtful but that is, of course, personal choice*) but precisely as he says: sure, he's happy with what he has. Until he suddenly doesn't have it anymore. Whatever you think about the quality of the squad and players, we are incredibly susceptible to injury in so many positions. We've already been treated to how much worse we are with one (slash two) players out for a few weeks. And that player(s) wasn't(weren't) even Livermore. Or even Hoedt. (*We're regularly starting Tom Dele-Bashiru, which seems to me as though it tells us everything we could possibly need to know.)
I do completely agree that we needed more reinforcement, I am just not a fan of the suggestion that others have made that he is being dishonest or is a patsy. We just have to hope his 60th minute subs continue to work and that we have a couple in the under 23s knocking on the door for their chance.
(This gif is not a criticism of or aimed at you, but the concept of being forced to rely on those things and my reaction to it)
The following is not a defence of or an attack on the club, I just wanted to find out as best I could just how often particular agents are used So I did some digging recently and came up with the following information; Footballing associations have only needed to publish agent involvement within deals (transfers, terminations, contract updates etc.) since April 2015 Bizarrely, not all agents (aka intermediaries) are put forward by either the player or the club they represent and this seems to be fine with both the FA and FIFA, though this practice is more prevalent in the first few years these lists appeared Between April 2015 and January 2023, Watford are listed as having been involved in 214 agent transactions listed by the Football Association Of those 214 transactions, 30 deals had no agent listed as representing the club (Watford) Also of those 214 transactions, 127 different agents are listed by the club as to being their representative* Some of those transactions included more than 1 agent but I've counted each agent involvement separately * it isn't uncommon for players and clubs to list the same person as being the agent involved in a deal For example, in many Troy Deeney dealings, the agent Simon Kennedy is listed as the agent by both player and club, Christian Kabasele had Mogi Bayat, who also represented Watford in the same deal and Nathan Chalobah had Frank Trimboli, as did Watford, for his deal in 2018. It isn't uncommon While this cannot be a comprehensive total due to the amount of missing named agents, here's a list of all agents with 2 or more involvements; 20 - arnaud mogi bayat 08 - simon kennedy 06 - jose rodriguez baster 05 - norman capuozzo, william d’avila dit dabela, oladele oladipo salami 04 - riccardo calleri, paul martin, bakari sanogo, alexandre lemos soares, latchezar tanev, claudio vagheggi 03 - darren dein, fernando feliscevich, jeroen hoogewerf, istrati leonid, frederico mathias, david moss, vincent o’keefe, carmine raiola, frank trimboli 02 - albert botines, joaquin vigueras canovas, jose pablo varela diaz, fabio firmani, sergio furlan, michael jansen, viktor kolar, david manasseh, goran matijevic, pedro pereira, rudy raba, giancarlo uda, david vagheggi there are 93 agents listed by Watford as having been used only once (I'll spare you the list) Just because everyone is so enamoured with his involvement, here's a breakdown of Bayat's listed interactions by numbers, year on year (I've italicised/highlighted every other one in the hope it's easier to read) 1 between April 2015 - February 2016 (Oulare) 2 between February 2016 - January 2017 (Kabasele, Okaka) 1 between February 2017 - January 2018 (Lukebakio - listed with didier frenzy) 1 between February 2018 - January 2019 (Foulquier to Getafe) 2 between February 2019 - January 2020 (Lukebakio to Hertha Berlin - listed with oscar damiani, Sarr from State Rennais - listed with mathias miller) 0 between February 2020 - February 2021 9 between February 2021 - January 2022 (Louza from Nantes - also named by player, Dennis from Club Brugge - listed with william d'avila dit dabela, Etebo from Stoke - listed with william d'avila dit dabela, Kucka from Parma, Sissoko from Tottenham Hotspur - listed with bakari sanogo, Kamara from Nice - listed with bakari sanogo, Kayembe from Eupen - also named by player, Samir from Udinese - listed with renato martinez, Kalu from Bordeaux - listed with william d'avila dit dabela) 4 between February 2022 - January 2023 (Sissoko to Nantes, Louza new contract - also named by player, Hoedt from Anderlecht - listed with jeroen hoogewerf, Dennis to Nottingham Forest) While there's no surprise who comes top, and it's also worrying both Bakari Sanogo and Carmine Raiola have also been used often, I hope this makes people aware that we do actually deal with other agents However, what cannot be determined by the lists alone is which agent is connected to which agent, thus possibly bumping up the numbers for any individuals listed above Maybe if I worked at this for a living I'd dig into those connections but as I did this for fun(!!!!) that ain't happening
That piece will have been sourced by a few different means - and anyway it names targets, which is what we apparently wanted yesterday. Markoa$ said the club have regularly misled about vague deadline-day efforts to sign players - I can't ever remember that happening and wondered whether there is a link to an example.
Very good work. On the face of those numbers he is “mildly favoured” but it’s so weird he’s in the directors box so often, and those (old unsubstantiated) stories of him running the ship while Pozzo flitted in and out. Away from Bayat I’m still mystified how we ran up more agent fees during last promotion than anyone except the big 6, given our limited spending.
I don't think the material time is 2015 onwards, extending it to then skews the analysis. Although Bayat appears for the first time then, his influence has clearly grown. If the figures were re-run from 2019 it would look quite different (chose that year as that's when his UK company was set up). And you're right, no other agent appears to be sitting next to the owner most games. People connected to the club also didn't set up any other agent's UK company and retain a financial interest in it whilst also sitting on the board of our parent company. And whilst I agree with Oxhey that agents "double hatting" acting for club and player is normal in the weird world of football, the point stands that quite often we will pay a player's agent on a deal who acts for the player and Watford, but also Bayat who acts just for Watford. So it's not about the multiple roles, that's a red herring. It's about multiple agents fulfilling the same role on a deal. Perhaps that happens all the time with other ones too, I haven't looked into it. As is often the case, hyperbole takes over when people say "we only act through Mogi Bayat". This is clearly incorrect. But then so is Pozzo's claim that he's "just another agent like any other".
If these were players that you seriously wanted, maybe you should have started working on negotiations earlier, giving you time to find alternative targets... Just a thought!!!
Thank you I think the key would be who he is in partnership(s) with. Between April 2015 & January 2017 his involvement is listed as being with the Creative Management Group. From memory I didn't see that name associated with any other agent, which seems a little odd if it's a group! So I put the name into Google and it now, if it ever did, doesn't have anything to do with football. What does turn up is the name Creative AND Management Group (via Transfermarkt) where Bayat is listed as the sole member of staff. It could be it's just a name of a company he's set up for himself but I can't find a site for it to see if anyone else is working directly with him, as happens at other player agencies I briefly looked at But is it a case of having to follow the links? He has more than once been involved in deals with William D’avila Dit Dabela (what a name!) who is/was a director at DW Sports Entertainment (https://www.dwsportsman.com/). But they too fail to list their agents, if indeed there are more than William D’avila Dit Dabela working under that company name Oscar Damiani is another he is listed along side but once again, he's an agent who appears to be alone operator. Jeroen Hoogewerf (named in the recent Hoedt transfer) works for SEG (https://seginternational.com/), who look like a huge agency with links to some of the top clubs but again, fail to list who works for them Maybe it's a European thing because an example of the more British-centric company Pinnacle Sports & Entertainment (https://www.pinnaclesel.com/) shows them to be more open as to who works for them - https://www.pinnaclesel.com/#side-panel. Their credibility, however, is tainted somewhat by having Ashley Fletcher's image appear quite a few times through their site! I looked at this company as Simon Kennedy works/worked for them and his name came up with multiple involvements for Troy Deeney, Tom Cleverley and the aforementioned Ashley Fletcher, possibly others if I were to search back The text is now deleting or replacing itself so I'll leave this be for others to debate or speculate over. Hopefully it gives some perspective to the clubs dealings with agents though
The timeframes I've set out are taken exactly as it has been produced by the English FA, so yes, it is from 2015 only No FA was required to publish agent involvement prior to 2015 when a FIFA directive meant ALL FA's had to publish these lists It would be interesting to know of the agents involved from the moment the Pozzo's took over in June 2012 because they did a fair bit of business then, but it just isn't listed officially
I did come across something to do with agent fees but, from memory, I don't think it itemised who was paid what. If I get time (and have the inclination) I'll have a look. Don't hold your breath though!
As I'm waiting for something else to happen I did a quick search and as I say, the agents aren't listed separately by the FA As an example, here's the page for the time period covering February 2019 to January 2020 Watford are listed as having made 25 deals within this time period (according to the lists I found to do with agents)
There will always be a team that gambles on a post-transfer window run to the play-offs and I wasn't at all surprised that Hull's latest ambitious owner has been backing Liam Rosenior's approach to the hilt in attempting to throw new shiny players - presumably attracting reluctant recruits at exorbitant expense in terms of loan and transfer fees - into the mix at this stage in an attempt to find the 'right' answer. Hull's recent efforts have fallen short on the pitch so expect to hear Liam trumpet his "quality additions" should they scramble a win or two in the coming weeks despite the lack of decent team structure. Even if this gamble partially pays off to achieve a top 6 finish, I don't see them as a likely play-off winner and the biggest risk at the season's end will be to the manager himself. I'll admit I'm not a fan of him, he's just a smoke and mirrors man in my view. The more interesting approach is Coventry's who have been building their team over a longer period with a sustainable model in mind which, at the risk of pretentious speak, favouring organic growth of the team's structure/tactics/even personalities under Mark Robins (forgive me the business terminology please!). If nothing else I'd prefer us to replicate the Sky Blues way and the messages that VI was offering at his Press Conference yesterday seems to suggest that is where he wants to go and, if you believe him, where the owner currently wants to go (I know, I know). Patience needs to be a virtue for us, which has been in short supply in our Boardroom in recent years but maybe (just maybe) this might offer us a change from the previous rinse and repeat sackings and the likes of Hodgson, Wilder etc etc appointments that were doomed before they started.
Brilliant work, thank you for finding it and breaking it down. However, I don’t believe much of this as you have to trust the data coming out the club. I don’t doubt your analysis of it though.
One thing I forgot to post and may go a little way in explaining Bayat being so heavily involved and a continued presence on match days is him being in some way a 'consultant' to the club, not just an agent we deal directly through. I part want to look for any quotes by Pozzo as to how Bayat is explained but I can't be bothered right now This may be tin hat conspiracy thinking or me just being naive and uneducated into how clubs operate but could the club/Pozzo use Bayat as a go to man, not agent, with all or some of their required players list for him to contact his contacts? That way he could be on a retainer (add on to agents fees?), be paid finders fees if we sign a player through his contacts (add on to agents fees) or just plain old sign players he represents (get finders fees AND agents fees) It's probably rubbish but I was trying to think of ways money leaves the club and pushes up those agent fees we so like to pay
I don’t believe signing an additional DM to cover the 34 year old we currently have playing who isn’t used to playing full-on seasons is either gambling nor impatient. It’s sensible. Even the hardened negatives like me would have been satisfied. We couldn’t even do that. The only thing I believe has changed is the owner’s interest level and financial flexibility. They gambled on promotion last year and failed, this year Ismael is the lucky winner who’s so happy to just be working after multiple failures that won’t say boo to a goose.
Thanks GD Yeah, I'm still sceptical of the data, especially as for the first couple of years it isn't exactly complete, and I'm pretty sure the FA doesn't methodically check the information given to them, just publishes it as given because they have to A disclaimer provided on each time periods listing so much as says the information is given/published in good faith and (my phrasing) isn't a legal document. So it won't be 100% accurate but, any club or player is leaving themselves open to accusations of wrong doing if some internet nerd (or actual journalist) digs deeper and finds something isn't right, just like the Guardian did in 2016 - https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/dec/14/chelsea-watford-face-questions-over-agent-links I think my post does show just how many agents are involved, to some degree, and it isn't just one bloke signing off 90% of our deals by himself - at least not publicly! The thing I don't understand in general is why a business, be it FIFA, UEFA, England's FA or even the EPL itself do not demand 100% transparency in transfer dealings. What have the governing bodies got to lose by insisting each country is committed to full disclosure? Why present something just for the sake of it rather than cracking down on a seedy part of football which takes money out of the game? What's the phrase commonly used in fraud; follow the money. I guess if enough finds its way up stream then nothing will ever really, truthfully, be done to get rid of people exploiting whatever system is in place
Yeah I get that but the point I was making is that Bayat's involvement appears to have grown from "just another agent" to "agent of choice". So if you exclude the first few years, the percentage of deals involving him has increased significantly. Also of note is that no other English club has touched him since 2018. Pozzo and Duxbury have been at pains to point out there's no exclusivity which does beg the question that if he's that good, why aren't other clubs using him? Football is hardly a moral industry... Bayat also gets paid by the selling clubs too quite often. He's not Belgian but does most of his business there. Coincidentally, Belgium is one of the few countries that doesn't cap agents' fees... Their FA also publish their data although it's not as easy to find as the English. But the biggest red flag in all of this is that we (or at least someone that sat on the board of Hornets Investment Limited, the parent company of the club) set up Bayat's UK company for him and then kept a stake in it as a lot of our business went through him. This question was directly put at the fans' forum and Duxbury/Pozzo lied in their answer and then shut it down. You can see that they lied by looking at Companies House, it's all there in black and white. If they'd told the truth and given a proper explanation, the concerns could've (possibly) been allayed.
Okay, I see what you're saying now. I thought it odd you were discounting time frames simply because he appears less involved then! It's since February 2021 he's dug his heels in and as you say, that partly coincides with him being ostracised by everyone else. Connected in some way? But if he is doing something dodgy, why suddenly start putting your name on documents? There are just too many ifs, buts and maybe's to be certain about anything One thing I did notice was he was never named as just the players representative in any deals with Watford. It was either for Watford AND the player or just Watford. And in the information given to the FA he didn't act for the selling club alone in our dealings with him either, though as you say, that doesn't mean he won't have been paid in some capacity The last point you make is just a horrible read isn't it. I came across that when looking for information and it's just depressing
I do understand and partly share the frustration on the DM cover specifically and VI did gloss that one slightly. I guess that's a product of his in-built optimism and acceptance about the bumpy road the Board was trying to navigate in the last few days particularly, which isn't unique to WFC . Overall I can still subscribe to the direction of travel we're taking and his description about the general squad cover he's trying to build despite the disappointment about not getting that particular answer over the line in this window.
An excellent piece of work that provides some interesting data. I have used it to analyse to what degree Mogi has been favoured. First, an analogy, by way of explanation. Imagine a hardware store that sells 219 hammers over a period of 127 days - an average of 1.72 hammers per day. Taking the purchase process to be a collection of random events, it is described by a statistical equation (The Poisson Distribution) which allows you to calculate probabilities. In this case, the probability of selling 3 hammers or more in a day is only 9.6% The probability of selling 10 or more hammers in a day is about 2 in a million. If the shop sold 20 hammers in a day, they would rightly think that something strange was going on. I realise that the data is imperfect - in particular it does not include the number of agents that we used on zero occasions but, if anything, adding this in would lower the average and make using a particular agent on 20 occasions even more of an unusual event. I'll leave people to draw their own conclusions.
On this point our “other operating expenses” were about £10m above our peers like Palace per year when in premier league (and cumulative is an Astronomical amount). No breakdowns required in the accounts but plenty of fat to be chewed on there, in terms of consultant/advisory fees potentially. (Disclaimer: pure speculation).
We probably still won't have the money or appeal, but if we end up selling Asprilla in the summer we could do worse than trying to replace him with Bowler who is only on loan at Cardiff. Cardiff were generally worse than us across the match, but his one moment of quality made the difference.
Quoting your own posts for mistakes now…we’ve finally gone full circle! Peak Rous - what a time to be alive!
Barcelona interested in Asprilla apparently https://www.canalrcn.com/deportesrc...-hipotetico-salario-si-ficha-barcelona-181754 Colombian midfielder Yaser Asprilla has been attracting attention in England for his outstanding performance. At just 20 years old, there is a possibility that he can join one of the great clubs in Europe in the near future, specifically FC Barcelona of Spain. According to reports from the National newspaper of Catalonia, the sports director of FC Barcelona, Deco, has Asprilla on his radar. In addition, it is mentioned that several sports directors of English teams have been closely following some of their matches with Watford.
