.. on his view on the loan situation at Watford http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21402835 I didn't realise quite the extent of there loans but I'm amazed that there is a club in this division with more loan players this season that us! Fair play to Zola and Watford they have a great team and will be in the mix up at the end of the season... and for playing the system to their advantage but there needs to be a bit more policing involved in my opinion.
we cant complain too much as we only get away with the amount of loanees we do due to N'daw and Murphy being international loans. The second and more interesting point is that all but 1 of their loans come from clubs which share the same owner so its like an inter-business transfer. If they made the current system illegal I imagine the clubs would sell to Watford and buy them back next summer. Difficult to put in place proper sanctions with multi club owners I imagine
French and Belgian players have made a major impact in our top leagues in the last few years, why on earth are we not looking in this direction, do we not have a scouting network in these countries? perhaps we do and the scouts are duff, and we should also make inroads into Holland.
I don't agree with Olly on this one. Either there is a legal reason for it or it will be tightened up, but there would always be a way around it if an owner has more than one club, or even if owners and managers are just pally with each other. we also have to remember how our top sides, particularly Chelsea and Arsenal, milk smaller clubs from around Europe of their talented teenagers.
Just signed up to let you lads know (You probably don't care but oh well..) that some of the players he had circled, have returned to Udinese/Granada. We have signed Forestieri. Others will sign in the summer. But my main point is that the media are totally ignoring the fact we had 4 academy players in the squad that night against Palace...they had 2. They also only had 2 loans less than us in the squad i believe. Finally, there is NOTHING stopping the little prat signing 100000 loans from abroad or any other team doing so. We've done nothing wrong...surely teams like Cardiff/birmingham who are in debt, are those going about their business in the wrong way? Good luck tho and lets hope for a good game tomorrow night.
Totally agree Dan. And I have nothing but admiration for Zola. He would've been my absolute number one choice for the Town job. I would love to see Watford promoted this season
By the way, as for Olly, he is a top man too, he wouldn't have grumbled if Palace had won, I think being frustrated at the result was the main reason for his comments.
The Football League have got wise to this loophole and it will be closed in the summer so if Watford don't go up they will be ****ed!
I think Watford will find a way to get around this by 'releasing' players and then signing them etc. Fair play to them for making it work for them though, at one stage they had 11(?) players on loan and it appears to be working for them on the pitch but understandably something needed to be done but I doubt it will change much as if clubs want to trade with each other then they will. Also there was never anything stopping us from going down this route... Which looked like we were going too under Jewell but so many players on loan from one club does make things a little bit ridiculous
Thing with rules is that they are the same for everybody. If one club can gain an advantage by using the foreign loan system then so can another. No need to bitch about it just because your club doesn't take advantage of the same rules.
Unfortunately I can see loans becoming more popular rather than less due to FFP. Clubs will look at their transfer budget and instead of spending money on permanent signing fees plus wages they will look to secure season long loans for better quality that cost a bit more in wages but nothing in transfer fees. Add to that academy products being added to the first team and you have a cheap way of running a club. I can also see restrictions being brought in about the number of foreign loans allowed after Watfords clever use of the system has shed light on the subject. Either that or other clubs will follow suit.
I have to say I don't like what Watford have done and it can't be sustainable like that and the rules should be changed IMO regarding the rules but you can't blame Watford for exploiting them. Further more Zola has done a superb job, although they are great players rarely do managers pull it together as quickly as he has and in such a stylish way, although you could argue that they clicked so quickly because many of them were from the same team anyway. I have to say I hate watching Watford this season (due bitterness) because they play the football we should aspire to play, it's superb passing and movement, playing in triangles, so good to watch and I just hate that we just don't try to play football anymore.
Actually itfcptc most of the Italians( 3 off in total) have never played with each other for Udinese , Battachio spent time injured but not near udinese 1st team squad, Cassetti bought from Lazio on a free then loaned to us , the others Vydra spent time injured played something like 14 games in last 2 seasons , None were 1st teamers for Udinese. Anya and Geijo knew each other from Granada I grant you ! Zola has worked a small miracle in jelling these guys along with our own aquisitions Almunia and Hall(both free transfer), with the spine of last seasons side (Deeney Hogg Doyley)etc as well as using academy products like Thompson , Murray etc, Hope this has helped dispel a couple of Holloway Myths. Others like Fanchone didnt make the grade and have been sent back , Mbia we loaned from Standard liege and he will prob go back , Abdi Pudil Vydra tec will be signed permanantly in the summer Our only true loanee is chelseas Nate Chalobah and what a player he is!
My original post was to say well done to Watford for realising this is an option for Every football league club and that they have made it work for them. I do think however it asks a lot more questions about club ownership.. This has potentially set a precedent that clubs can run as 'sister clubs' and under the same 'family' which is where Watford are very much going.. Yes there are youth players in the squad which must be commended But what is to stop Udinese to ultimately 'buy out' Watford and fill with their own players? It's a very fine line that is currently working for you but there isn't a great shift needed before you become a B team which is where I find issues... If Barcelona were to buy Barnsley and fill it with their youth in order to give them more competitive football then a whole storm of morals and ethics in football would be thrown into even more contention, and I think with the way football is going that would not surprise me at all as a lot of our 'smaller' clubs becoming feeders for the bigger clubs in England and across Europe as the concept of 'community football club' gets extinguished for ever
Surely Watfords version is more sustainable for their future than our own. Watford had 8 loanees, 7 of which are from 'sister' clubs so they have a good chance of tying up their futures at an 'agreeable' price if they want to. We had 7 loanees, of which I think we have got an agreement in place already to buy 1. A couple of them are out of contract in the summer and will have freedom to move to wherever they want. Chances are Watford have got the basis of next seasons team already yet we have probably got a whole new rebuilding to do again. In general and when taking into account ethics, its difficult to judge. Man Utd have been using Royal Antwerp as a feeder club and a way round the work permit rule for 20 years!. Ajax have Ajax Cape Town as their link into Africa and loans have been made to give youngsters and fringe players game time for many years. Does it matter if you have 7 loanees from different clubs or 7 from the same? Would fans care if half the team wasnt theirs if they were succesful? We put up with it and we arent even seeing the real benefits of the decision! If it wasnt loans you could potentially sell them to your 'sister' club and then resign them after 12 months. Barcelona already have a system in place where youngsters are sold with a pre set buy back price which can be invoked at any time within the first 2 years. It possibly isnt the best thing for the long term future of the game but with limited cash around then its possibly the difference between staying in business and going skint for some clubs
Isn't that the way it has been for years though? Smaller club develops a player, bigger club comes in and takes them? If anything, we are now in a stronger position to say no as we don;t need the money to sell. We will still sell if they are good enough because you just can't deny player's ambitions, plus this is the Pozzo way; Buy young and cheap, develop, then sell for a large profit! There are rules like the home-grown rule still in place, and we are actually still ok with this. I can understand Holloway's rant to an extent, but we actually had more Watford Academy products in our squad than he had Palace products, and ours had played more minutes than his this season! It just felt like a ready-made excuse if they didn't win! What you will find with Watford in the forthcoming seasons is a lot less loans, whether they keep this rule or not. This season we had so many to make us competitive quickly - just no-one knew how much we would be this season! Now we have access to the scouting network, we can identify young players ourselves that would suit Watford, and develop them ourselves. We will still have our very good academy, it's just the kids won't all have English-sounding names!
But, if this was the intention, why would they choose a club, such as Watford, who have consistently been on the cusp of the most financially rewarding league (admittedly, that title is about to wane, given the success of the Bundesliga)? Is the risk actually that Udinese become Watford B?
Also, I would like to add, I am very impressed with the Ipswich fan's approah to this situation. You actually seem to look in to the situation as opposed to making generic comments copied from the Daily Mail.
I love a good debate about the concepts of community and the road that football is going down and shedding it's roots.. I even wrote my University dissertation on the subject I think we at Ipswich have seen possibly the other end of the loan spectrum in terms of success as we've had numerous loans that I can't even remember who we've had through the door this season! but we haven't been able to win a raffle we've been that hopeless at times. That is probably why we are looking at it as we are, we are watching longingly from the distance and seeing the fruits of a method that isn't working for us. Whatever happens to Watford though I think it'll be really interesting and I'll certainly be keeping a keen interest as like I said it could end up making the club or ruining the 'Watford' that we know and that you have grown up supporting
