A simple comparison between the three newly-promoted Premier League clubs’ transfer policies this summer produces contrasting results.
Norwich and Bournemouth have gone down similar routes, spending a fair portion of their budget on Championship talent, while targeting seasoned Premier League players on both free transfers and loans. Ipswich left-back Tyrone Mings arrived at the Goldsands Stadium for £8 million, with Sylvain Distin and Christian Atsu joining, while Norwich have swooped on Robbie Brady for £7 million, Youssouf Mulumbu and Andre Wisdom.
Down in Hertfordshire, however, things have been a little different.
Watford signed over 40 players in three years to get promoted out of the second tier, and that policy has continued this summer – with no fewer than 10 arrivals at Vicarage Road so far.
The Hornets have been openly mocked in some circles for the way in which they have approached the transfer market in the last three years.
The club’s owners, the Pozzo family, also control European clubs Udinese and Granada, using that link to maximum effect in order to help Watford’s cause.
Critisicms of this method have included the lack of opportunity for young British players and the morality of acquiring players with a high market value virtually for free.
Allan Nyom is the latest to arrive from another of the triumvirate, but generally that policy has been discontinued as the club looks to assemble a Premier League-standard squad.
With a reputation for a reliance on the non-British market nurtured, any further foreign arrivals at Vicarage Road will be questioned and vilified.
But let’s look at some of the figures in question.
Assuming that both Mings and Brady will play at left-back for their new employees, Brady could also feature in midfield, then the cash spent on the pair is quite extortionate.
Watford’s new left-back, Jose Holebas, arrives having spent a year at Roma keeping Ashley Cole out of the side, for a fee of under £2 million, surely evidencing both the reasons for the Pozzo’s reluctance to dip into the inflated home-grown market and the pull that they have as a family in Europe.
Why would Watford not use that influence to attract players of a calibre naturally above their standing for far inferior fees than paid for unproven Championship talent like Mings?
Holebas was voted into the Serie A team of the season last year at left-back, Mings failed to shine as his Ipswich side was thrashed in the playoffs by Norwich.
Pozzo has broken the club’s record transfer fee on Etienne Capoue from Tottenham – a player who was considered one of the brightest prospects in Europe just two years ago.
Unfortunately for him, and plenty of others, White Hart Lane is the graveyard of some of Europe’s finest prospects and the Frenchman has been forced to take one metaphorical step back in order to take two forward.
That he demanded a fee of just £5.8m, in comparison to Bournemouth smashing their record for Mings, is further proof that Watford are getting things right.
Suggestions that the club has over-bought are also stemmed in laziness.
The capture of Holebas is a clear signal of the Pozzo’s reputation around Europe. Valon Behrami, another summer signing, has himself confirmed that the family was a significant pulling point.
He told the Watford Observer: “I had other offers and other chances…but I like the way the Pozzos work.”
“I have known them for a long time so I know when they start a project they are doing something seriously and building something important.”
“I had the chance to be involved in this project and I did not have to think too much.”
The majority of bottom half Premier League clubs will envy the players Watford have attracted this summer and if such names fancy Watford then we fancy them, thank you very much.
Any suggestion that that the squad will not gel is tempered by performances over the last three seasons – a period of time in which an unprecedented number of players have signed for the club and five head coaches have patrolled the Vicarage Road touchline.
And the number of signings can be further explained by the fact that Quique Sanchez Flores has become the sixth.
The impressive Spaniard aims to implement his own style and system on the squad, and needed backing in the transfer market to do so.
The Hornets rarely utilised out-and-out wingers last season and needed to invest in this area, while all supporters would have told you that weaknesses lay in defence – another area which, on paper, has been markedly improved.
With Adlene Guedioura and Matthew Connolly returning to their parent clubs after fruitful loan spells, and Daniel Tozser’s situation confused by parent club Parma’s predicament, the number of new additions begins to justify itself.
In an era when over-spending is, rightly, castigated, it is wrong to then blame the club which aims for the very best value available.
The Hornets have been prudent, Gino Pozzo does not allow himself to be bullied into paying what he feels is over the odds, and appear to have done some of the best value for money business in the Premier League this summer.
No one is overconfident, but there is a sense that a few reputations may be laid to rest on the hallowed Hertfordshire turf this season.
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