da fazobetai： Watford appear to have pretty much clinched the signing of Diego Perotti for £7m from Genoa, beating off interest from the likes of West Ham, Inter Milan and Valencia.
da betcris： The signing will represent a major coup for the Hornets, but is it really the type of signing recently promoted clubs should make?
In recent seasons newly promoted clubs have had varying success in the summer transfer window. Take Cardiff City for example, who spent big on a few high profile players such as Andreas Cornelius for £8m, Steven Caulker for £8m and Gary Medel for £12m.
The latter of the two were decent signings for the Bluebirds, but Cornelius was a complete flop and returned to the club he signed from in the January transfer window. Nevertheless their big spending did not reap its rewards as they made an instant return to the Championship.
Obviously it is different at every club and at Cardiff they were not helped by owner Vincent Tan’s antics. But what is true is that one spending model could fail at one club whilst a similar one could succeed at another. But a spending model Watford should try to adhere to is the Leicester City model based on their success last season.
The Foxes signed a large quantity of players but some real quality ones too, which proved to be the difference and eventually kept them up.
Esteban Cambiasso on a free transfer was a master stroke, incidentally a player Watford could sign this summer as he is out of contract at the King Power. Another key signing was top goalscorer for Leicester last season Leonardo Ulloa for £8m, whose goals ultimately kept them in the Premier League.
Maybe Perotti can be Watford’s Ulloa next season, albeit with his creativity rather than the goals he scores, as the former Sevilla man is not a prolific goal getter.
Only time will answer that question, but a question that will be answered far quicker is whether Watford are showing huge intent by signing Perotti or is it naive?
A number of similar high profile signings could be a statement of real intent from the Watford board, who will be showing that they are going to have a real good crack at staying in the Premier League rather than just enjoy the ride and hope for the best.
For example, Burnley last season, quite understandably so, cut their cloth accordingly and spent money only on George Boyd and accepted that if they went down they would be in a better position financially for it, and will bounce back stronger as a result.
Whilst spending big is risky or even naive, Watford look like they will take that route and it seems that if they can keep their prized asset in captain Troy Deeney, they will add some quality additions around the team to support the strikers they already have.
And in that sense Watford are in a unique position as most newly promoted sides will sign the best striker they can and the other signings may be frees or low fees, and it could be argued that Watford don’t need to go about their spending in that way.
Especially with the goals of Ighalo, Vydra and Deeney already in place, they may not reach their Championship goal scoring records but the three will get goals in the Premier League. And signing players like Perotti and the already clinched Sebastian Prodl will be the calibre of player Watford add to improve their squad.
It is hard to say if it is naive or not, but I prefer to take the view that the Hornets are showing some real intent and are going to spend big to get some quality players in, to really challenge their bottom half rivals.
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