‘Players from Europe understand what Gino Pozzo is all about’

Sporting director Luke Dowling says the club are “delighted” with their transfer business this summer, adding the return of Adlene Guedioura was the icing on the cake.

Dowling, in tandem with owner Gino Pozzo, chief scout Filippo Giraldi and sporting executive Nicola Salerno, have worked furiously this summer to create a squad capable of, at the very least, holding its own in the Premier League.

The arrival, on the final day, of Guedioura, Obbi Oularé and Victor Ibarbo took the number of new faces to 15, three of which were loan deals. Jonathan Bond, Fernando Forestieri, Lewis McGugan and Cristian Battocchio were the high-profile permanent departures while Gabriele Angella, Matej Vydra, Daniel Pudil, Miguel Layun and Diego Fabbrini were all sent out on loan.

“The club are delighted with the business we’ve done,” said Dowling. “We’ve got strength in depth and signed some really good players to add to the ones we already had. We’ve got real quality to now go and push on.”

Guedioura adds to the midfield options after joining at the 11th hour from Palace.

“When a player wants to come back to this club it’s a bonus,” continued Dowling in an interview with Hornets Player. “Ade made the point to us after the Sheffield Wednesday game that’s what he wanted to do. That’s great for us. We know he has quality, he knows the environment and he strengthens the squad. The hard part was between us and Palace, but Ade was patient and continued to train hard with Palace. We are delighted to have him back.”

The club were particularly pleased to land Etienne Capoue so early in the summer. The arrival of the France international for a club record fee demonstrated to other targets Watford meant business. Only a few got away. Younes Kaboul’s wage demands were too high, Benjamin Stambouli got as far as visiting the training ground and agreeing terms but he had his head turned by a return to France to play in the Champions League with PSG. Diego Perotti ummed and ahhed for too long after Watford had a bid of £7.8million accepted for the Argentine winger by Genoa, before eventually deciding he did not want to move countries for the third time in as many seasons.

Watford expressed interest in Gokhan Inler, Fabio Borrini and Lazar Markovic but their wages were beyond the reach of the club, plus Inler was considered too similar to Valon Behrami and Capoue. France Under-21 midfielder Abdoulaye Doucouré was closer to joining Watford than he was West Brom but opted to remain in familiar surroundings as his partner is pregnant. There was, however, no interest whatsoever in Lex Immers, Seydou Doumbia, Elvis Manu or Michail Antonio. The names of Will Hughes and Demarai Gray were discussed while Quique Sanchez Flores decided Rudy Gestede was not for him.

“Windows are normally difficult as they are, but what made this more difficult was being in the Premier League and knowing players will move on,” said Dowling. “The demands are a lot higher when you are speaking to advisors and agents. The Premier League sells itself and players from Europe understand what Gino Pozzo is all about and what he has done at Udinese and Granada. They understand he is trying to put that in place here.”

Pozzo has used the club’s close proximity to London as a selling point and so many of the new signings have spoken to us about “the project”.

“When players come to look at the facilities it sells itself,” said Dowling. “Everyone has been very impressed, even someone who has come in from another Premier League club, like Capoue who has just left a brand new training ground at Spurs. It’s a hard sell when it comes to finances as we haven’t got the financial backing of Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal. But what we do offer is how we look after them and how we play football.”

Some argue that those teams who do so much business on the last day smacks of panic but Dowling said the fact that three deals went through in the last few hours – it would have been four had Doucouré joined – was not down to a lack of preparation.

“The ones we did on the last day, we had been negotiating for three or four weeks,” Dowling said. “We got them over the line on the last day because we were negotiating with an individual or the club. The planning was in place and the players had been identified. It just took time to get done.”

Dowling will be particularly chuffed with the deal they negotiated for Vydra. Click below for more.

EXCLUSIVE: Finer details of the deal that has taken Matej Vydra from #watfordfc to #readingfc http://t.co/3Tv64EQ7gg pic.twitter.com/Tfl01eLJ9r — WD Sport (@WDSport_) September 1, 2015

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