I am not his biggest fan, but he would still be starting for us at left centre back if we were picking purely on merits. If he is being excluded due to potential interest, then I dont understand why Sarr and Dennis are not in the same boat. Just odd he is being treated differently.
I guess Dennis and Sarr are being more professional than Samir? There's also the fact that, although Samir would get into the team all things being equal, he's not as much of a gamechanger as Dennis and Sarr
Not sure you'll be saying that after watching another couple of games of Cathcart's left footed floaters to no-one down the line, think it would be a pretty big game changer having a left footed centre back who didn't treat the ball like a live hand grenade... (He defended pretty well in the opening game but it was painful watching us lose the ball every time they pressed him onto his left foot)
Maybe his attitude isn’t as committed as the others ? Maybe has said he wants to leave and doesn’t want to risk injury jeopardising a move whereas Sarr & Dennis are getting their heads down and playing with 100% commitment ?
Or he’s refusing to play competitive games and they aren’t? Or he’s away somewhere waiting on a move? Not sure it’s a case of the same situation but being treated differently.
Really not fussed if we bring in a LCB before he leaves to be honest. We need one - but I wouldn’t let it stop us making money on this dud. Said he was cack when he joined and he didn’t disprove the point. People were hoodwinked by him being left-footed, and not enough attention was paid to whether he was ever good enough for what we needed.
I surmised that he would be mediocre and not good enough to improve us when he joined. He's done absolutely nothing to disprove that. Don't understand why people seem to think he was our best center back.
He wasn't good enough, but he was/is better than what we had/have. I feel people are being pretty cavalier about us losing our least worst center back, since we haven't singed a decent one since Prodl/Britos.
IMO it's mainly to do with the 11 player home grown rule. If he was HG I think he would be in the starting 11 every time. To many non HG's and something has got to give. I don't like it
It should not be difficult to find a player of a similar standard at a reasonable price. However, given the clowns in charge of recruitment, I suspect our efforts will be like Cucho's sale where we sold a good player for a low price and overpaid for a poor player as his replacement.
That's my point. If it's not difficult why are Cathcart and Kabasele still starting for us 3 years after they should have been upgraded? We has half a season of Samir. A season of WTE a mixed bag from Sierralta etc. But still, two centre backs who've been proven to be over the hill, error prone and with no upside are still playing for us as of today.
I'd still rather Samir over the two of them at LCB. Im not sad to see the bloke go, but when we replace him with some ***** right footed non home grown ex-Udinese squad dross on deadline day I am not going to class his departure as a good thing. He is still one of our best 3 centre backs by virtue of the awful standard of the lot of them.
Reported on ESPN Mexico that he's off to Tigres: The reinforcement for the centre-back position is coming! Samir Santos of England's Watford is the most advanced option that #Tigres have to shore up the defense. -Brazilian -27 years old -1.88 meters -Flamengo, Hellas Verona, Udinese -Left-footed
Any idea of the fee? Can't imagine it'll be too much considering he's going to Mexico and not one of the major European leagues
They spent £6.3m on a CB last season (according to Transfermarkt), so unlike us they aren't allergic to spending money on defenders.
No idea - Tigres are one of, if not the wealthiest, club(s) in Mexico though. Do spend money on fee’s and pay good wages. Total guess but I imagine we could get £2.5m - £3m maybe. Which is good when you consider he’s pretty rubbish and he cost us nothing. But not so good when you remember he was brought in as the saviour of our defence last season and that’s how little we think he’s worth.
A quick look at spending in Mexico suggested that Tigres had 7 players on over a million dollars a year (or euros, can't remember lol) quite recently (they had Gignac and Andy Delort on the books at one stage), so I've probably got that wrong then!
Di Marzio reporting that the fee is €6.5m + bonuses. Excellent. https://twitter.com/DiMarzio/status/1558467389804761089?t=DwHJAvzd_0sAsC7fEX2mkA&s=19
