Ended up being a horrible move for all involved. Glad we’ve managed to get this sorted relatively early, and hopefully it’ll mean we’re in a position to move forward on some incoming deals.
Wonder if there's a little bit of waiving fines and consequences of them, in exchange for transfer fee? Possibly just a coincidence.
We've absolutely done them, if true. Marseille do tend to have one big £20-30m signing every summer (Vitinha, Gerson, Strootman, Payet) but I'd be surprised if they wanted that to be Sarr
May well be an initial fee of <€20M rising to c.€25 with add-ons. Even if the total deal ends up being worth c.€15m overall though, I'd say this is still good business given recent form, length remaining on his contract after 4 seasons at the club and slim prospect of him propelling us to promotion. I think it also just about salvages a respectable return for his overall time at Watford. Will have cost us net c.€4-5m a year exc. wages, which isn't that bad overall considering two of those seasons were in the Premier League and he played an important part in promotion in another. Plenty of other players have been worse deals.
This is a good take on this. We should absolutely be questioning the decision making and how we've utilised Sarr because it's clear there is a very good player in him, but for a number of factors it never consistently happened and in spite of this he has been one of our more potent players even when it doesnt feel like it.
Even if the fee is 15m, that's good for a player in the last year of his deal coming off the back of years of indifferent form. 20m+ would be an excellent outcome given the surrounding factors.
I get what you’re saying regarding surrounding factors, but I just think it’s really poor business. It’s extremely bad to have got into that position in the first place, where we have to cut our losses to get anything we can, and the owner being given a pat on the back for it.
I don’t believe 20m+ for a second but if I’m wrong then fair play, that’s excellent £10m-£15m max I reckon
All that we will know is we will have removed £3.25m from the wage bill and Marseille/Gueye owe us 2.5m euros the rest will remain a mystery until the accounts come out
I agree it's a failed bit of transfer business overall. We're selling him for considerably less than we bought him for, which when Pozzo spends a chunk on a player is the opposite of the plan. The original deal still looks bonkers - I know last season if you looked at other PL clubs we still had a higher transfer record than a third of them and that was solely down to Sarr. Completely bonkers in hindsight. That said, if we've managed to get close to €20m for him that's a fairly respectable recovery. It's a bit like a last minute consolation goal when you're already 3-0 down.
I don’t see how this can possibly be presented as good business. We paid over the odds for a player our system at the time didn’t really need. We then held on to him during times where decent offers came in for him. Were but he’d joined Villa last summer with us getting Archer in exchange. However, I also don’t believe we can go to the other end of the scale and say it’s very bad business. True we’ve lost money on the deal in terms of net spend, but it’s not as if Sarr has been sitting idly on a shelf somewhere these last few years. His appearances for us have played a part in a promotion and in staying in the PL for a year. So he’s helped us financially in that regard. This move to Marseille isn’t as good a deal as we could have got for him at other times in the last couple of seasons, but equally it’s somewhat better than had he stayed another season barely contributing and then leaves on a free.
Did we? I would have thought if that were correct, and he supposedly wanted to leave, he or his agent would have kicked up a fuss to force a move. I suppose it depends what you mean by “decent offers”. If someone bid, say, £10m two years ago, should we have accepted it?
Well for starters Villa offered £25 million plus Archer on loan. Which is a better offer than the Marseille one.
Think both of his premier seasons were relegations but nonetheless his 4 years of service were valuable when factoring in the overall deal. Overall a poor deal for the club, but much better than burning money on Oulare, Sinclair, Kalu, Okoye, Kums etc and literally getting nothing out of them at all. Or Gray to a lesser extent. People will always remember Richarlison, Luckebackio, JP but when all is said and done the sheer volume of expensive poor deals we have done is staggering.
Which we accepted, but Gerrard then said he didn’t want him and pulled the plug on the deal. That couldn’t be helped.
Mogi Bayat's Wallet. Good to finally see him off and I do honesty wish him the best. He was unhappy here that was obvious hence his total lack of effort. £15m+ is probably Gino's last resort, and considering we have had no offers at all since he almost signed for Villa - it's a deal we had to take.
Not really the club's fault that Gerrard and co. changed their mind at the last minute though was it. The Villa deal was as too-good-to-true then as it was in hindsight.
Whilst I'm glad to see him leave it's a shame his time with us never really worked out. Whilst he did garner 34 goals and 24 assists for us in 131 games largely as a winger it always felt as though we were waiting for him to kick on. The continuous manager changes probably didn't help neither adequately replacing Kiko at right back who helped Sarr flourish by offering an outlet. In most games he was double marked from the off and we never really countered this which limited him. It's a shame as there is a player in him but we didn't really get to see it bar a handful of performances.
I'm happy with anything over £10m for him. Glad he's (nearly) gone. He was one of many reasons I cancelled my ST.
Seemed like a confidence player, so 6 managers in 2 years and surrounded by wasters who couldn't be bothered probably didn't help. I suspect the complete mismanagement of the club by Pozzo and Co. is more responsible than Sarr himself. Wouldn't be surprised if we see him playing a lot better at a new club.
Hmm. Just been debating this with a pal. How much is down to him, didn't like the food, weather, couldn't/wouldn't learn the language, homesick, didn't like/prosper in our leagues? How much is down to the revolving door of coaches, structure (!) of the club. Probably bits and pieces of all of the above but a terrible disappointment all things considered.
Very true. It was a strange affair wasn’t it? I believe Sarr had 12 different managers, if you include the caretakers. Played his best under Pearson? Maybe Munoz too? @Burnsy lovely to see you popping back. Thanks for the info!
That's highly respectable. Welcome back @Burnsy even if it may be brief. Hopefully you'll still stop by once in a while.
With the Gueye money we've managed to blag out of them as well we've managed to get what we could/should have got last summer for him. Good business in fairness.
