Watford are interested in acquiring the services of AS Roma forward, Gregoire Defrel on loan for the remainder of the season. The 26-year-old is serving a spell away from his parent club Sassuolo and has barely made a mark in his 10 appearances for the I Giallorossi.
The Hornets have reportedly agreed to pay £2.6m as a loan fee for Defrel with an option to buy him back in the summer for £17.5m. Defrel started his professional career playing for Parma but could not break into the first team squad in his early days. It was at Cesena where he found his feet and went on to make 110 appearances for the club netting a measly 16-goal tally. He improved himself at Sassuolo but soon was deemed to be an excess in the squad.
The Golden Boys started off the season in scintillating form and at some point even matched strides with Leicester and Burnley for the 7th spot, but now it looks like they have run out of steam and a series of injuries to key players have really stunted their progress. They are currently staged at the 10th spot of the Premier League table after winning just one of their last eleven league games.
Marco Silva’s management style took a huge detour and according to some fans and critics was rightfully sacked by the Watford board. Who thought that their promising season would wither out so fast?
However all is not lost and now with Javi Gracia at the helm, the club is ready to resume their seasonal plans of finishing the season in the top half of the table, well away from the relegation zone.
Andre Gray finished the 2015/16 season with 25 goals for Burnley which might just have earned the £18.5m move to Vicarage Road last summer. But the forward has struggled to replicate his goalscoring form in the Premier League for the past two seasons and have just netted the ball on 4 occasions this season.
Troy Deeney has also been a shadow of his former self with just a couple goals and assists in the current campaign. He was quite rusty in the side’s 0-2 defeat to Leicester City away last weekend and attacking reinforcements are necessary if the club wants to keep their seasonal ambitions alive.
Will Defrel be able to find his shooting boots in the English game? Only time will tell and by time – one means 14 games.