gray banged them in for fun in the championship too. It's not a good division to judge how good a striker is.
This is why I said it was probably best left alone. Vydra is a much better fit for the club than Okaka and Fessi is a much better player than Sinclair. Maybe we would still need an upgrade if we still had those original players, but IMO we have downgraded our strike force, even though we've been a EPL side for 3 years now.
People seem to forget how abject ighalo was in the months leading up to his departure. He was appalling. Worse than Gray.
Easy to forget though that Vydra had his Premiership experience, and didn't fare well. Nostalgia clouds peoples judgement on players. As for Gray, the money we paid for him is market value. What would have cost us £5m ten years ago, now costs us triple. The homegrown rule has now made British players ridiculously expensive. Burnley paid Leeds £15m for Chris Wood, and Swansea signed Sam Clucas for £16m - its madness
Watford don't pay market value though. They make these clever signings such as Chalobah for £5m, Hughes £7m, Doucoure £8m, Richarlison £11m, Deulofeu maybe even turn out to be free!!, Kiko free, Cleverley £8m. Watford try to be smarter than the rest, and rarely spend big on anyone. The next biggest was Pereyra for £12m and you can see he's a quality player. I know Success was around £13m, but that's trading between one Pozzo account to another. This is why I cannot understand why we committed so much money signing an ordinary player like Gray. Everyone outside of the club were sniggering over it, and it looks like that initial thought was indeed a correct one. Silva dropped him and it doesn't look like Gracia fancies him either. Whichever way you look at it, it was a bizarre decision by the club to sign him for the money they did.
Its a lot of money, but I suppose its really £12/13m + the addons to take it up to £18m. At the very worst, somebody in the Championship would pay £10m for him purely for his record there, so the risk is minimal.
I'm not in any sense a fan of Andre Gray but that is very harsh. Trevor Senior? Ellington? Moralee? All high ticket signings in their day and all significantly worse than Andre. Although, I haven't included the 'ex-scummer' factor, so you might be right
From what I gather the gray transfer had a lot of bonus related add ons and was about £12m. I imagine most of these bonus payments have not been reached!
If we could get a work permit sorted for Peneranda and possibly Hernandes then we might have a bit more depth to the strikers available. Earlier reports were that they were pretty good finds. Therefore we may not need to spend any money on strikers in the next window as we possibly already have the solutions.
I think the bigger problem that is overlooked is the opposite. No one is asking for an endless surplus of quality. But we have a squad of 25 which can be supplemented with youngsters. Our injury crisis has shown up the fact of just how many average quality players we have outside the First XI. I don’t want a surplus of quality who never get a game - I want a hungry squad of 25 who are all capable of pushing for a spot in the team. I want Doucoure and Chalobah performing out of their skin because they have a midfielder breathing down their neck in training who is ready to step in when their performance levels drop even slightly. We had Watson and Capoue. This is just an example but it can be used for more or less every single position in the team. The fact that we haven’t invested in our youth system for a number of years has compounded this issue. Not every player dreams of sitting on the bench for Watford. But I bet a huge percentage dream of pushing for a place to play regularly in the Premier League. That’s the type of player I want. We have too many who I don’t believe to be good enough to reach the level that this club has been vocal about where it wants to go.
Delefelou could definitely do that in the Premier league, let alone the championship. I’d say half our first 11 could do that... in the championship. The question is could Vydra do that, in the Premier league? He certainly didn’t manage to while he played there.
I'm not saying he's the worst striker we've ever signed in terms of ability, but he is in terms of value for money.
Possibly why he isn’t getting picked ahead of Deeney. If it’s appearance related then it may be a way of keeping the fee lower.
I don’t think you can possibly say that without actually factoring in realistic inflationary figures. The fee we payed for Ellington as a championship club would be way way in excess of £18m if you factor in relative transfer fees and TV money now compared to then.
With Vydra, I've always thought he would perform better with better technical players around him. He's fast and he moves the ball on very quickly. With a player like that, others have to be on the same wavelength. I always remember Deeney's interview a couple of years ago, when Ighalo was scoring for fun, and he said Vydra was without doubt the best technical finisher at the club. With the players we have now, such as Pereyra, Carrillo, Deulofeu, Richarlison all around him, he would have flourished and he wouldn't be missing the one v one's on a regular basis, as others currently at the club do.
A big task assembling 25 players that are good enough to play in this league though. I'd say only Man City are capable of doing so. All very well wanting quality everywhere, but that would put us among the big 4/5 teams in terms of wages. We simply can't afford quality across the board, nobody can. As for the youth system, what's the point anymore? Teams in Category A can take them off us for pittance. Besides, we've only produced one established Premiership player in the last 20 years
Perhaps, but some of those bonus payments will probably be activated eventually as I can't see us moving him on anytime soon. I imagine there's probably a goal scoring bonus for this season so we should be safe on that one.
That's a fair point, but it's just my opinion that he's been the worst value for money signing in the club's history. He may well turn it around, and I hope he does, but as it currently stands, that is my view.
I agree, a club like Watford cannot afford to have 25 "first team" players on the books. But they need to get the first XI as high on quality as possible. As already discussed, the none of the central strikers can score goals, the left side wing backs are not good enough, nor is the back up option at right wing back. Central defence needs a couple of "first team" additions too. Where we have done well is midfield and on the flanks. We have good first choice players, and decent backups. This is the level we need all areas of the team to be in order to complete, without relegation fears.
He might achieve more around better players, but he certainly wouldn't be leading the line as part of 3. You would have to play 4-4-2 to get goals out of him. Deeney may say he's a great finisher, but 1 goal every 3 games in the Championship shows he's not that prolific, and no less prone to a bad run than any of our current strikers
The premier league TV deal was worth £1.7bn at the start of the 07 season when we bought Ellington, it was worth £5.14bn when it was last renewed, but when we bought Ellington we were not even in the PL anyway. Ellington almost bankrupt the club, Gray’s fee is barely a drop in the ocean of our TV money. Without the benefit of an exact mathematical equation to go on I’d say Ellington was by some distance our worst value signing.
Absolutely, there needs to be more focus on quality. The best example is at the back, we've got 7 centre halves, and I couldn't tell you the best pairing. They are all equally average
You may be right, but I think he'd be able to play the lone striker role better than Gray, and this is what we're talking about. Who is better. It's just opinions, but from what I've seen of Vydra and of Gray, I would say, without doubt, Vydra is a better player, and we sold for a less than we signed Gray. We sold Vydra for £12.5m and signed Gray for £18.5m. That in itself seems a bit crazy.
This is more the point I was trying to make, just better put. If we increase the level of our First XI, then the players you take out are more than adequate to make up the squad. It’s the current squad players that for me aren’t good enough. And injuries mean that at present, they all get a game. When every single player at the club is fit, there are still areas which need a facelift. Sadly though, given the amount of loanees we have in midfield, I can’t see anything other than another major squad upheaval in the summer.
Totally agree. We've actually got 8 centre backs on the books if you include Wague and Hoban. None of them are nailed on first team players. They are all similar in terms of ability, which would be great if that ability was a comfortable Premier league level, but they are not. They are pretty much all in that bracket of players you would like to have in a promotion winning Championship side. All those problems with defending crosses was apparent against West Ham on Saturday, which was disappointing, however, I think the bigger problem is at wing back where neither Janmaat of Zeegelaar/Holebas are good enough. It was no surprise to me that those three were all at fault for the two goals we conceded. They are regular offenders and make the same mistakes week after week.
I wouldn't say its crazy, its simply the result of one being homegrown and the other not. Gray also is more prolific in the Championship than Vydra, which is the only fair basis on which to compare them.
I thought Vydra was sold for £8m ? Other than that I agree with pretty much everything you have said today, although i think he would be better in a 442 or 352 formation than sole striker.
When you watch them play (in the prem or the championship) it is clear to anyone who is the most skilful and technical player.
I think you're right, but I don't think it's very strange: Replacing strikers is extremely difficult - if they are of proven premiership quality then they are extremely, indeed prohibitively expensive (and don't forget that the signing fee is only part of it). Also they have to be tempted by the prospect of joining WFC. Could we have afforded Giroud's signing fee - probably. Could we afford his wages - no, and the wages structure would be out the window. Would he want to join WFC ahead of Chelsea - almost certainly not. So we have to go for unproven ones - and even they are more expensive than gold dust. Good strikers are arguably the hardest position to fill. And . of course, with the Pozzos we simply don't know how hard they've tried on this matter. What is strange, to me at least, is the rate at which Deeney has declined - under two seasons ago he being was tipped as an outside chance of an England cap. I still think he would appear better if he was played in the right way, by the way.
According to WD Sport, it was a deal worth £12.5m plus a sizable sell on fee. http://www.wdsport.co.uk/2016/08/matej-vydra-left-watford-in-club-record-deal/ I really miss WD Sport.
