Exactly. £2m is just the initial downpayment. Could rise to £15m based on performance related criteria. £2m then.
Shame. I think there’s a talented player in there somewhere, but we’re not in a position to give him the time he needs on the pitch to rediscover his touch and sharpness. He definitely looked a yard short of pace in the minutes he had. I think I’d have been okay with a loan until the end of the season, and a chance to reasses in the summer, but if they are offering us a transfer fee, can’t blame the club for taking it given that he’s unlikely to feature massively between now and the end of the season.
Everyone sees thing differently, of course, but I am stunned that so many of you seem to think Healey was anything other than utter cr@p. I bet Pozzo was outside the bank before it opened first thing this morning to pay the cheque in before Huddersfield realise that they've just been well and truly rooked!
More like representatives of Macquarie were outside his door first thing this morning to intercept him before he managed to stash it in his Bayatclays account.
VI quote in Watford Observer: “He came to me a few weeks ago and made it clear he had an offer and he wanted to leave the club,” said the Watford boss. “At that point he hadn’t played a lot and he wasn’t happy." I find it slightly odd that his 2 recent starts seemingly came after he had an offer and had indicated he wanted to leave and possibly knew he was on the way out. I'm not sure how motivated he would have been in the circumstances. I know Bayo was suspended but seems strange timing to give him his chance.
He was a better character than Gray and Davis and more likable than some of the players of the past. I guess being constantly third choice to Raj and Bayo was always going to be a problem but his injury record wasn't the best but I think when he did come on he tried and did score in a couple of games. It does look like now, looking back, that his performances at QPR and the Chesterfield game may of been some sort of marker to whether or not he was going to stick around. Best of luck to him, I think he has a solid career ahead of him if he stays fit.
Ismael is good at managing the players he is given and forming a team. Brilliantly so in fact. However when it comes to media he is a gutless puppet, a corporate man, as you have to be to survive as an employee of the despicable Gino Pozzo. Fair play to the guy - he is managing both the team and idiotic owner superbly. But don’t expect his forced quotes in the media to make any sense.
Probably natural to start him for the cup game just to give him a run out but did think it was strange he started last week tbh. Now had he got a few goals or really impressed wonder if we’d be so prepared to let Healey go ?
At 29 it’s fair enough that he wants to be playing. At 29 it’s fair enough that we have let him go and cashed in rather than wait to see “if he will develop” and become more useful in future.
Good luck to the lad. Frees up space for additional RBs. Seriously, we'll need another striking option now.
A great shame he was never given a proper chance. If the manager wants to play with a lone striker, why were we signing someone who is clearly better suited to playing in a pair up front?
I think his comments pretty much confirm no RB is coming in. Probably next step is a 5 year contract extension for Ngakia.
He was ****, couldn't control a football, and I am not going to sit here and let the revisionists pretend that his mere presence on the pitch didn't completely offset the balance of the rest of the squad and any hope of forming some kind of passing play. The only redeeming factor Gray had was not being Troy Deeney losing headers as he strolled around stationary in the centre circle imagining he was 6'4". You can look back through by searching 'Gray' on this forum to see how poor of a footballer he was.
Fine. But that was not the point I was arguing. I was countering the suggestion that Healey was better than Gray and pointing out that, however hopeless he was, he made a handful of highly significant contributions. Football's a nuanced game. Sometimes bad players do good things. Writing off people who made a contribution that counted saps all the joy and meaning from the entire pursuit. Maybe it's just me but I just don't see what's constructive, or rational, about taking that point of view. Gray's winning goal in the last minute against Brendan Rodgers' Leicester was one of the best moments of the past five years. Gray was a regular in the squad that achieved Watford's best ever Premier League finish (and third-best ever top flight finish) and reached the FA Cup final. That's not a case of revisionism.
Gray was diabolical but better by far than any of our current crop of mediocrity. To compare our premier league maestros to these terds is laughable. Jurado would comfortably be our best player in this squad.
Marvin Sordell is Andre Gray, but better. The fee just added insult to injury, they were both terrible footballers in almost all parts of their game. Sarr was dreadful relative to his fee but looking at it separately a reasonable footballer who wasn’t as good as the marketing department tried to make him out to be. Couldn’t dribbled past a player though and any full back who just decided to sit deep and let him run at him pretty much took him out of the game.
Good points there. Not his fault the fee was so inflated. I was more cross with Gray for breaking rules that we were all supposed to adhere to twice - and particularly when the club themselves were trying to say it was too unsafe to return to action etc. Mind you the PM of this country thought it was ok to break his own guidelines so maybe was being harsh on young Andre there.
The thing is with Gray he absolutely flew in the face of our supposed model under Pozzo, which didn’t help him at all. We just didn’t spend such large fees on players that at best, were at the peak of their value; that was the Everton model but the opposite of our model. We either brought promising young players fairly cheaply, or players like Capoue, who has perhaps lost their way a bit so we get them at a knockdown price, but the talent was obviously there somewhere. Gray and Sarr were both massive outliers to our existing model that had worked so well up to that point. And then the bizarre decision to blow such a large amount on a player like Gray gets compounded further later on when we don’t pony up for Toney, who was far cheaper and far better.
I wonder if that is why we don't really go in for talent at a lower level now - it's put the Pozzos off?
Not buying Toney from Peterborough has put the Pozzos off not buying from the lower leagues? I’m not sure! I think we do go in for talent at a lower level. Ince is an example of someone whose talent is at a lower level.
Absolutely spot on, this. It was baffling at the time and was the beginning of the end for the Pozzo strategy I reckon. Or maybe there was never a strategy in the first place.
