Official: Will Hughes joins Watford

[maxjam]

7 hours ago, CumbrianRam said:

Bet some fools will boo him if (he ever) returns to PP

Don't we boo him already?  I forget who we're supposed to boo and who we're not these days.  I just blanket boo the lot of 'em.

[i-Ram]

lt is pretty clear to me that Hughes is leaving shortly. Can someone remind me who Watford are up against in this crazy bidding war?

[MackworthRamIsGod]

I think the sensible thing to do is to see who we sell, see who we sign and see how we play against Sunderland first game of the season.

We have failed for the last few seasons and changes were needed.

The ideal scenario would be, we have a great season and get promoted, Will Hughes becomes a star of the Prem and Liverpool buy him for 50 million and we have a 20 percent sell on clause.

Ive decided Derby County induced negativity is no good for my blood pressure, so namaste ? 

[secretsquirrel]

Probably Rowett wants to get rid of about 9-10 players but unfortunately Will and Ince are the only ones attracting interest.He has to freshen the squad 3 years of mediocrity/failure needs adressing

[Gritty]

3 hours ago, Derbyram1983 said:

I'm not moaning but when he sacked clement he was talking about a percentage of the squad needs to be home grown players. Think it worked out as 4 or 5. Lowe or Bennett won't get in the squad next season unless we get lots of injuries. These are the only two anyway near the squad not the team. I really don't know what is going off 

Lowe would be my first choice left back.  GR won't like him I suspect as his style is attacking like Christie. Elsnik and Vernam would get game time were we to have a smaller squad (23 as aimed for). But I suspect it'll take a couple of transfer windows to get numbers down. We'll end up loaning quite a few players out I think

[YouRams]

I'm reading a lot of comments that say £8m is a fair price, Wills not reached his potential etc etc. The gumps sold Burke last season who had no expierience at all for £13m. 

In a "normal" market you'd say Will is probably worth £8m based on the past few seasons. But add into that the crazy inflation we see + x amount of championship seasons + England u21 international. £8m doesn't seem so attractive does it? 

[PistoldPete2]

It's back to the days of the three amigos. Actually worse... Hughes is a much better player than either huddlestone or rasiak.

selling hughes in a fire sale would be diabolical. 

[toddy]

1 minute ago, YouRams said:

I'm reading a lot of comments that say £8m is a fair price, Wills not reached his potential etc etc. The gumps sold Burke last season who had no expierience at all for £13m. 

In a "normal" market you'd say Will is probably worth £8m based on the past few seasons. But add into that the crazy inflation we see + x amount of championship seasons + England u21 international. £8m doesn't seem so attractive does it? 

Regardless of what us fans think he is worth, it is a buyers market and he is only worth what another club is willing to pay.

I do think 8 million is too low, but if that is all we get it is not the fault of the manager or the club. We have to cut the wage bill because of previous mismanagement,  giving players 30,000 a week to play in an average championship side is now coming back to bite us.

Things do have to change if we want to be successful as a football club.

[i-Ram]

1 minute ago, PistoldPete2 said:

It's back to the days of the three amigos. Actually worse... Hughes is a much better player than either huddlestone or rasiak.

selling hughes in a fire sale would be diabolical. 

Pete we don't know it is a fire sale. A more plausible explanation is that Will and his agent had a clause inserted in the last contract that he could leave this summer (and perhaps only to a Premier League club). Will had a lot of good cards in his hand at the last negotiation, perversely because he hadn't played for somewhile. Maybe we are over a barrel now because we were put over a barrel back then? With regards to how much he is worth, it's what someone is prepared to pay. Whilst only Watford are at the table it isn't going to be a great deal. Hopefully Brighton or one or two other lower end Prem teams are monitoring developments. Hope so.

[Sparkle]

At least there is a big difference between now and last season under Pearson,

currently we are doing our buisness early and the signings are good with Davies and Wisdom for relatively little money and seem to be well thought out unlike last season where we just utterly panicked and signed expensive squad players whilst letting established performers depart with no improvement at any level 

yes we will see some favourites depart so hopefully it will be for the greater good

in terms of Hughes going well its like losing one of our own and the great sadness is the price being far to small in our opinions but there appears to be no auction taking place, no second club wanting to pay the money unlike when Hendrick left and both Hull and Burnley wanted him.

[StringerBell]

1 hour ago, BurtonRam7 said:

I'm not sure, but this idea has just seems to come out of the blue. Plus, it should make no difference whatsoever as we'll end up with the same amount of money anyway.

It seems a fairly educated guess as to why might be happening.

It makes a difference if we don't have to spend as much, the low fee we appear to be getting would theoretically be offset by the lack of payment we were due to make.

It still doesn't make it ok though, as we'll still be swapping one of our favourites (under Mac at least) for 2 players who haven't nailed a place in the current team.

[NottsRammy]

This is getting silly 

Lets keep Hughes 

lets keep Keogh 

lets keep ince 

Infact lets keep the whole team that's failed so miserabley the past 3 seasons , WHEN will all of you WAKE UP and smell the coffee . They aint good enough , the world will not end selling these players at Derby . What will happen is a glimmer of hope for next season .

Just like selling bobby davison to leeds all those years ago didn't break the club.

In the history of good players going Hughes, Ince and Keogh pale into insignificance.

GET A GRIP ALL OF YOU 

And get em gone gary TOP JOB your doing.

[Inglorius]

Typical British mentality reigns on here akin to the Little Englanders attitude to selling houses; the house next door sold for x hundred thousand pounds so therefore my house is worth x plus hundred thousand as it has a lean to on the side of it, the garden is 1 foot longer etc.  Just like Will Hughes a house is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it and it you're having to be forced to make a quick sale as you're relocating to another part of the country then the price goes down even further. 

[YouRams]

4 minutes ago, toddy said:

Regardless of what us fans think he is worth, it is a buyers market and he is only worth what another club is willing to pay.

I do think 8 million is too low, but if that is all we get it is not the fault of the manager or the club. We have to cut the wage bill because of previous mismanagement,  giving players 30,000 a week to play in an average championship side is now coming back to bite us.

Things do have to change if we want to be successful as a football club.

But then if the right amount isn't coming in why sell? Its a big risk because nobody knows if Will can make the step up but we could explore the loan option as we did with Martin rather than be held to ransom. We'd make a few million on the fee, one less player on 30k a week and the possibility of him returning if we make the step up.

Also if we are seen to be letting players go on the cheap to teams that can afford to spend other teams will try and take liberties with other players. Every team seems to play hardball with us so why aren't we doing the same?

[PistoldPete2]

1 minute ago, NottsRammy said:

This is getting silly 

Lets keep Hughes 

lets keep Keogh 

lets keep ince 

Infact lets keep the whole team that's failed so miserabley the past 3 seasons , WHEN will all of you WAKE UP and smell the coffee . They aint good enough , the world will not end selling these players at Derby . What will happen is a glimmer of hope for next season .

Just like selling bobby davison to leeds all those years ago didn't break the club.

In the history of good players going Hughes, Ince and Keogh pale into insignificance.

GET A GRIP ALL OF YOU 

And get em gone gary TOP JOB your doing.

We have a first team squad of 30 players. Yes we should keep hughes ince and Keogh. And martin and nugent. That still leaves us with 25 players we can sell if we actually need to.

[toddy]

10 minutes ago, YouRams said:

But then if the right amount isn't coming in why sell? Its a big risk because nobody knows if Will can make the step up but we could explore the loan option as we did with Martin rather than be held to ransom. We'd make a few million on the fee, one less player on 30k a week and the possibility of him returning if we make the step up.

Also if we are seen to be letting players go on the cheap to teams that can afford to spend other teams will try and take liberties with other players. Every team seems to play hardball with us so why aren't we doing the same?

Why sell?

Because we have too! Wage bill is too high snd possibly getting close to FFP.

We cannot loan players out if team don't won't to loan, it is a buyers market. 

[brady1993]

1 hour ago, Kernow said:

I'm surprised and confused by those who are using this potential deal as another stick to beat Mel Morris with.

I'm by no means MM's biggest fan. I've been critical of him and feel that he has made many mistakes at Derby, and that most people's opinions are influenced by the fact he's a local man with a shed load of cash.

However, this time, he's being criticised for sanctioning the deal and not vetoing it? The same people probably slated him for going into the changing room at half-time and for appearing in every photo with new signings. But now is it ok to intervene? Morris allowed Martin to leave against his own preferences because he backed Pearson at the time. Rowett is being given full control over the dealings this window. If MM was to step in and stop the deal, then he may as well make himself manager. After all he does pick the team, right?

If Hughes leaves for the reported fee then I'll be disappointed, but the world is still going to carry on spinning and Derby County Football Club will continue playing matches. We don't know what the team will look like come the end of the window, but who's to say we won't be a more rounded, complete team? Hughes is a good player but what overall impact has he made on our promotion push? He's a bit of a luxury player in the sense that he's definitely good enough to play PL football, however I don't think he would be the difference between us making it there or not. I'd rather keep Ince than Hughes if I had to choose one.

Ultimateky we're still going to be left with a strong midfield on paper. Thorne-Johnson-Butterfield has a good balance and a bit of everything. I don't think we would earn an awful lot of extra points with Hughes instead of one of those three.

It's the 22nd June. We have over six weeks until our first game. Over 2 months until the window closes. Plenty of time for us to reshape to build a better team rather than a group of good individuals. Don't panic too much just yet.

I don't think you can blame Morris about the sale of Hughes, your right he needs to back his manager in that regard. What I do think is reasonable is questioning him over the fee and questioning about that why during his reign have we gone backwards by quite a bit (in terms of first team affairs), despite spending a large amount of money, to the point we now need to sell the likes of Hughes in order to balance the squad. A squad which has several players that we don't want and will struggle to sell.

[mrdave85]

I don't particularly want to see Will go, I didn't want to see Hendrick go either, but that's neither here nor there.

We don't know why the supposed fee (£4m, £8m, £10m whatever) has been accepted, but there will always be more behind closed doors than we will know. What if MM is strapped for cash? What if there was a clause/agreement with Will about a PL club this summer? Or if £8m release was in his contract? 

One thing this club has always been good at is keeping things quiet. Most of our fees are undisclosed, and details of contracts don't often get leaked to the media (that I'm aware of, happy to be proven wrong). It wouldn't have been us who leaked the transfer details, could Watford have done so if they think they'll end up paying more to keep their fans happy? Like one poster said previously, from the outside in, a Championship midfielder with 9 career goals and a poor two previous seasons for £8m? How would you react to that? 

We all think and know Will is worth more, but I hazard a guess most supporters of most teams will inflate the price of their best players too. It's a buyers market like Toddy said, so that combined with what has (perhaps) gone on privately between Will and the club has probably landed on £8m. All I know is, GR doesn't strike me as the kind to just get rid of a player a la Pearson. 

Could be worse, we could loan him to Fulham 

[RiddingsRam]

4 minutes ago, toddy said:

Why sell because we have too!

We cannot loan players out if team don't won't to loan, it is a buyers market. 

If we loaned him out people would still be whinging. 

You never know this could clear the path for one of the under 23 midfielders (callum guy) to make a stance for the 1st team. 

[Day]

In this case I think I would prefer a loan, he wouldn't be going to a rival. If he does what we think he can do in the Premier League is value would sky rocket, you would also hope that this could be our year and we would be a Premier League club.

Rowett's plans, ideas may change in a different league and Hughes may become part of his plans.

It's a risk as he could flop, be worth even less. It's a risk I would be willing to take though.