OK, you're not offended, even though you've come off as blatantly offended because of a relatively tame tongue in cheek comment. Makes sense. Like I say, a brilliantly 2023, Karen-esque overreaction. I hope you don't ever watch any stand up comedy. You'll be sat there shaking with SJW-rage.
They don’t allow any comedians onto the Ward so I’ve never heard any jokes. It’s really not that hard to disagree with someone without saying they belong in an institution. I think expecting civility in these interactions is not new. Although your post is the first I’ve reported, you’re not the first post to be reported and it doesn’t really have anything to do with my politics either with which you are not familiar. Last year, we had a number of valuable members leave the forum because conduct like yours had become so unbearable and commonplace. There has to be some balancing between having a space where people can disagree vigorously and making this a friendly space too.
I don’t agree but happy to disagree. I know you are big on stats but I just think anyone who scouted him for a period of time would conclude he’s an absolute dud and look elsewhere pretty quickly. I mean based of what you have seen from him for Watford would you pay 4 or 5 million for him? Would his Celtic experience not ring an alarm bell?
It's also really not that hard to not allow yourself to be so easily offended by such a tame, tongue in cheek comment and to not be so overreactive to it - behaving as if it was some sort of deep, cutting, abhorrent insult - but here we are.
French 2nd division (Wolves, Notts Forest, RB Salzburg, Benfica have all bought players from there this season) and the SPL aren't that far away from the Championship in terms of quality so your point doesn't really work. Don't see many complaining about signing Porteous cos he came from the SPL... Lyle Foster has just had a decent half a season in the Belgian league (after failing in Portugal, after a failed season in Belgium and failed in Ligue 1 - even only managing 2 goals in 571 mins in the 4th division of French football) and went for twice the price.
Well this is going to look extra dodgy when we see where’s he gone back on loan to. £5m of which it increasingly looks like was Monopoly money because the contempt with how he’s being treated does not align with how a club the size of Watford would treat a £5m asset.
Is he headed back to Charleroi? I would have thought his loan destination would be Belgium or Turkey. As long as there is an obligation of some sort for us to cut our losses I’m not too bothered, especially if this is the straw that broke the camel’s back with the Mogi relationship.
But, as always with these examples, they are surely exceptions to the rule, not the rule itself. I'm sure there are plenty of forwards who in a season have scored 10-12 league goals (which is what Bayo has done, he's not even had one, single 15+ goal season never mind a really impressive 25+ one) in one or more of the Slovakian league, the French second division and the Belgian league at one point or another who have never had a club spunk £5m on them on the strength of it. It's also worth nothing in terms of the SPL he scored a whole two, and was swiftly binned off. No one is saying you should never sign/take a punt on players from those divisions, what they're saying is that the fee of £5m for Bayo was insanity, which it undeniably was. No one is complaining about Porteous coming from the SPL because he's a young centre back who cost about 15 times less than Bayo... I'm genuinely beyond baffled that people are still trying to justify his signing and the ridiculous fee we paid. We're dumping him after half a season for a 30 year old Assombalonga who we've bought in a free from a club who happily cancelled his contract, that's how sh*t he is an how appalling a signing Bayo was.
Now confirmed! Well at least he’s off the payroll. Hopefully he can get some goals and earn himself a move to Turkey or something that gets most of our money back. https://www.watfordfc.com/news/official-bayo-completes-loan-switch
Nothing fishy here folks. Move along. Just a player bought for £1m, sold for £5m, then loaned back again. Absolutely no ulterior motives for any of it.
I'd agree if you're signing him to create chances for himself out of nothing or to bring others in to play which it's obviously apparent he can't do (not watched any clips of him before his time at Watford, but i'd hope we weren't signing him for those reasons. I'd imagine we were expecting we'd be able to create chances for him on a plate through Louza/Sarr/JP which hasn't happened, but I can see the logic behind it even if the execution has failed spectacularly. His Celtic experience was absolutely ravaged by injuries and the fact he came in at as backup to Edouard (who they'd spent 10m on 6 months before Bayo joined), but he still did what Bayo usually does - get in good goal-scoring positions
Absolutely disgraceful. Don't get me wrong I'm glad he's gone but the Bayat's flipped the player for a huge profit and now get him back for half the season! I'd say there's little to no chance that Charleroi are paying a loan fee or all of his wages either. Gino Pozzo hang your head in shame.
Is there an option? The club hasn’t mentioned one (although an option is much more destination club friendly than no purchase price anyway).
1091 minutes played, equalling to 11.2 whole games. Which works out at £454,000 an appearance. Which if my maths is right, equals £5000 a minute right?
There’s no hiding place really for the club or certain individuals (Bayats) on this one. And those fans who tried to justify the deal or claim he was a good buy, have had it thrown back in their face by the club tonight.
I've generally defended Bayo as a striker who's a player who's a decent poacher but overpaid for his skills. This... yeah. Blatant.
The weirdest thing is that 4 goals across 11 games of playing time isn’t actually bad on a goals per minute basis. No dispute that the whole signing for 5m , then returning for free to the same team in Belgium is strange
It is inconceivable that Mogi and his brother didn't know that we were going to buy him before he formally signed for Charleroi. That's the bit that stinks. Bayat has therefore worked in the best interests of his brother's club rather than Watford, aided and abetted by the hierarchy at our club who for some reason, were either beholden to Bayat or have some hitherto undisclosed commercial relationship with him.
That happens fairly frequently with clubs exercising a buy option for a player on loan after a successful season with a transfer on already pre-arranged. Best known example is probably Luka Jovic. Eintracht Frankfurt signed him on loan from Benfica with an optional €22m buy clause. He scored loads, Frankfurt exercised the buy option and sold him to Real Madrid the day after for €63m, not a chance that Madrid hadn't organised that with Frankfurt beforehand.
Bit like buying a car from a financial point of view, you pick it up from the forecourt knowing the dealer bought it in cheaper than he is selling it for, 6 months later you realise it’s not what you really wanted and a bit rubbish so take it back to the same dealer and he buys it back from you for less than you paid for it. If it was a rare Ferrari it may well have increased in value but sadly we bought a Fiat Uno.
I know this kind of thing happens. But not sure it's the same when the club that exercises the option and then sells is owned by one brother charged with fraud in relation to football transfers and the buying club channels most of its transfer dealings through the other brother who is also charged with fraud in relation to transfers (including funnily enough, the Dodi Lukebakio transfer to Watford when again Charleroi signed him from a loan and sold him straight to us and Belgian prosecutors allege there was a kickback to Mehdi Bayat!).
He still has a decent goals per mins for us I imagine. Presumably you want him to stay based on that and play every game? I must say I find it baffling that some of our fans are still trying to justify this farce of a transfer.
