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Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Mon Nov 09, 2020 9:11 pm

Middlesbrough manager Neil Warnock has revealed that he has previously tried to sign Ollie Watkins - but Cardiff weren’t willing to pay the £2 million asking price.

Birmingham Mail

Monday 9th November 2020



NEIL WARNOCK:


"I tried to get Cardiff to sign Watkins at Exeter but they thought £2m was too much," the manager told TeesideLive .

"He went for £2m and then £30m (to Aston Villa in the summer).


"I always saw him as a striker even though he was playing out wide.

"I'm always looking at lower levels. I rang Memhet (Dalman, Cardiff chairman) up recently and said, 'just remind Vincent (Tan, Cardiff owner) when he went for £30m and we could have had him for £2m'."

Watkins and Villa are next in action when they take on Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday evening.



https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/ ... a-19239305

News from Warnock claiming Cardiff had the chance to sign Ollie Watkins but didn't want to pay the £2m asking price.
Can you imagine...
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Re: Cardiff turned down Watkins

Mon Nov 09, 2020 9:16 pm

If we had him now, getting the ball to him and finding himself completely isolated would be the problem

Re: Cardiff turned down Watkins

Mon Nov 09, 2020 9:35 pm

Lucky for him.. he could still be jumping in the air with us.

Re: Cardiff turned down Watkins

Mon Nov 09, 2020 10:05 pm

Hmmmmmm! But they stumped up 5m for glatzel? Maybe neil wasnt assertive enough? I hate the"one that got away" stories.

Re: Cardiff turned down Watkins

Mon Nov 09, 2020 10:17 pm

bluesince62 wrote:Hmmmmmm! But they stumped up 5m for glatzel? Maybe neil wasnt assertive enough? I hate the"one that got away" stories.



a couple of years had elapsed

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Mon Nov 09, 2020 11:01 pm

Which year was this? I wonder who we got instead?

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Mon Nov 09, 2020 11:21 pm

Pantmawr Bluebird wrote:Which year was this? I wonder who we got instead?



spent 2 seasons at Brentford so presume it was when he went there..

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Tue Nov 10, 2020 8:15 am

HE would not have progressed under Warnock and his style of football

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Tue Nov 10, 2020 8:33 am

Also we wouldn't pay £1m for Jamie Vardy , when he was non league.
I think it was said as too much money for a non league player.
But imagine if we had signed them .
They careers may never have been what they are now .
Cant remember a player we bought , that as gone on to bigger and better things ?

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Tue Nov 10, 2020 8:41 am

Very easy to say in hindsight.

But there's nothing to say that he would have done well in the way we play football.

He went to Brentford, in a team that play possession-based football and had the ball at his feet regularly.

During his first year there, he wasn't a regular starter, and learned a lot from Neal Maupay. The summer after Watkins' first season, Maupay left to join Brighton in the Premier League and Watkins replaced him as a regular starter.

I strongly believe he benefitted from the way Brentford phased him into become a regular first-team player, and learning from a player who was scoring plenty of goals in the Championship.

Now at Villa, he is doing very well and good luck to him.


But I don't think he would be anywhere near as valuable as he is today if he had signed for us - for the reasons I have outlined above.

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Tue Nov 10, 2020 10:28 am

Someone wants to remind Warnock that he wasted £100 million on crap players when he comes up with these ridiculous statements blaming everyone else!Certainly for us the only players that were successful were his free transfers? The main reasons why he failed In the Premier League with five different clubs was poor signings and out of date tactics not his motivation which is his strength.

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Tue Nov 10, 2020 10:34 am

nojac wrote:Also we wouldn't pay £1m for Jamie Vardy , when he was non league.
I think it was said as too much money for a non league player.
But imagine if we had signed them .
They careers may never have been what they are now .
Cant remember a player we bought , that as gone on to bigger and better things ?



things might not have worked out with either...
Zohore.... :lol: :lol: ..not bigger and better things but we had good money for him...

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Tue Nov 10, 2020 10:41 am

HarriRhys22 wrote:Someone wants to remind Warnock that he wasted £100 million on crap players when he comes up with these ridiculous statements blaming everyone else!Certainly for us the only players that were successful were his free transfers? The main reasons why he failed In the Premier League with five different clubs was poor signings and out of date tactics not his motivation which is his strength.



I will remind Warnock he saved us from relegation first season and gained promotion the 2nd season earning us £190mill.

Only Dalman says Warnock wasted with their full backing and I don’t ever believe what he says.

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Tue Nov 10, 2020 10:45 am

Forever Blue wrote:
HarriRhys22 wrote:Someone wants to remind Warnock that he wasted £100 million on crap players when he comes up with these ridiculous statements blaming everyone else!Certainly for us the only players that were successful were his free transfers? The main reasons why he failed In the Premier League with five different clubs was poor signings and out of date tactics not his motivation which is his strength.



I will remind Warnock he saved us from relegation first season and gained promotion the 2nd season earning us £190mill.

Only Dalman says Warnock wasted with their full backing and I don’t ever believe what he says.


Warnock did waste money. He signed a lot of players that hardly played for us.

When that has happened with other managers, they have been slated by all fans. If future managers signed players and hardly played them, they will rightly be slated.

I don't know why Warnock is exempt from this criticism.

I'm no defender of Tan and Dalman or the board, but Warnock is not the Saint that many paint him out to be.

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Tue Nov 10, 2020 10:54 am

worcester_ccfc wrote:
Forever Blue wrote:
HarriRhys22 wrote:Someone wants to remind Warnock that he wasted £100 million on crap players when he comes up with these ridiculous statements blaming everyone else!Certainly for us the only players that were successful were his free transfers? The main reasons why he failed In the Premier League with five different clubs was poor signings and out of date tactics not his motivation which is his strength.



I will remind Warnock he saved us from relegation first season and gained promotion the 2nd season earning us £190mill.

Only Dalman says Warnock wasted with their full backing and I don’t ever believe what he says.


Warnock did waste money. He signed a lot of players that hardly played for us.

When that has happened with other managers, they have been slated by all fans. If future managers signed players and hardly played them, they will rightly be slated.

I don't know why Warnock is exempt from this criticism.

I'm no defender of Tan and Dalman or the board, but Warnock is not the Saint that many paint him out to be.



Ned,

Tell me any Cardiff manager who never wasted money?

But earned us £190mill :bluebird:


Dont forget you detest Warnock for some reason.

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Tue Nov 10, 2020 10:55 am

Cardiff City's £30m mistake as Neil Warnock makes transfer admission over Aston Villa star

The former Bluebirds boss was told no such deal could take place because the Cardiff City board believed the asking price was too high

By Glen Williams


Tuesday 10th November 2020

Neil Warnock has claimed he tried to sign in-form Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins while in charge at Cardiff City, but the Bluebirds board refused to fork out the £2m asking price.

The Exeter City product rose to prominence at St James Park, where he largely played out wide but scored a bundle of goals for the League Two club.

Warnock, who left his post at Cardiff City a year ago after three years in charge, was a keen admirer of Watkins and wanted to bring him to the Welsh capital in the summer of 2017.

However, the former City boss claims that Cardiff were unwilling to spend the money and Watkins ended up signing for Championship rivals Brentford for a reported £1.8m.

His form and reputation skyrocketed with the Bees, for whom he was largely deployed as the frontman, and following a 26-goal season last year, he earned a £30m switch to Premier League outfit Aston Villa this summer.

And Warnock has come out to issue a reminder to the City board that the £2m saving they made three years ago may well have turned out to be a £30m mistake.

"I tried to get Cardiff to sign Watkins at Exeter but they thought £2m was too much," the manager told TeesideLive .

"He went for £2m and then £30m (to Aston Villa in the summer).

"I always saw him as a striker even though he was playing out wide.

"I'm always looking at lower levels. I rang Mehmet (Dalman, Cardiff chairman) up recently and said, 'just remind Vincent (Tan, Cardiff owner) when he went for £30m and we could have had him for £2m'."

City did end up forking out money to bolster their forward options that summer, with Lee Tomlin, Danny Ward, Omar Bogle, Nathaniel Mendez-Laing and Callum Paterson — who was originally signed as a right back — all coming in to the club that summer.

And missing out on Watkins certainly didn't appear to hinder the Bluebirds, who embarked on an incredible promotion charge that season which saw them elevated to the Premier League.

But, as is always the case when missed transfers come to light, there is always a sense of what might have been with a talent like Watkins having slipped through the fingers.
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Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Tue Nov 10, 2020 12:35 pm

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=218391

Posted this on saturday

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Tue Nov 10, 2020 3:09 pm

nobby wrote:https://www.cardiffcityforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=218391

Posted this on saturday

You did, mate :thumbup:

Great to see you back, nobby! :clap: :ayatollah: :bluescarf:

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Tue Nov 10, 2020 4:23 pm

Sven wrote:
nobby wrote:https://www.cardiffcityforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=218391

Posted this on saturday

You did, mate :thumbup:

Great to see you back, nobby! :clap: :ayatollah: :bluescarf:


Have always been in the background Sven just not posted much :thumbup:

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Tue Nov 10, 2020 5:28 pm

Forever Blue wrote:
HarriRhys22 wrote:Someone wants to remind Warnock that he wasted £100 million on crap players when he comes up with these ridiculous statements blaming everyone else!Certainly for us the only players that were successful were his free transfers? The main reasons why he failed In the Premier League with five different clubs was poor signings and out of date tactics not his motivation which is his strength.



I will remind Warnock he saved us from relegation first season and gained promotion the 2nd season earning us £190mill.

Only Dalman says Warnock wasted with their full backing and I don’t ever believe what he says.

Exactly. Some people are trying to rewrite history. We went from second from bottom to promotion to the Premier League in 18 months and made a far better fight of staying up than Fulham a side who spent twice as much as us and who had a couple of managers whose tactics the Warnock haters would regard as up to date.

As for wasting 100 million I am baffled by that figure. Murphy and Madine have been a waste of money agreed and Flint and Glatzel are overpiced. But Smithies has been a good buy, he turned Zahore into a player we made a 6 million profit on and we got our money back for Reid. Cunninghams fee wasn't that high for someone who was highly rated at the time and he has been unlucky with injuries. Patterson was a steal because it was his uncanny ability to make a nuisance of himself and score more than his fair share that played a big part in our promotion. And in Etheridge we had a keeper that we could have turned a tidy profit on but the board saw fit to let him go cheaply to save on wages.

The promotion season will live long in my memory and for that I am eternally grateful to Warnock.

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Wed Nov 11, 2020 10:15 am

skidemin wrote:
Pantmawr Bluebird wrote:Which year was this? I wonder who we got instead?



spent 2 seasons at Brentford so presume it was when he went there..


In that case, we ended up signing Bogle, Madine and Ward!

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Wed Nov 11, 2020 6:55 pm

Pantmawr Bluebird wrote:
skidemin wrote:
Pantmawr Bluebird wrote:Which year was this? I wonder who we got instead?



spent 2 seasons at Brentford so presume it was when he went there..


In that case, we ended up signing Bogle, Madine and Ward!



Bogle and Ward.. Madine came in the January window..

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Wed Nov 11, 2020 7:32 pm

worcester_ccfc wrote:Very easy to say in hindsight.

But there's nothing to say that he would have done well in the way we play football.

He went to Brentford, in a team that play possession-based football and had the ball at his feet regularly.

During his first year there, he wasn't a regular starter, and learned a lot from Neal Maupay. The summer after Watkins' first season, Maupay left to join Brighton in the Premier League and Watkins replaced him as a regular starter.

I strongly believe he benefitted from the way Brentford phased him into become a regular first-team player, and learning from a player who was scoring plenty of goals in the Championship.

Now at Villa, he is doing very well and good luck to him.


But I don't think he would be anywhere near as valuable as he is today if he had signed for us - for the reasons I have outlined above.



Probably true and hindsight is always a wonderful thing.

Re: Neil Warnock Reveals Cardiff turned down Watkins

Wed Nov 11, 2020 10:31 pm

Forever Blue wrote:
HarriRhys22 wrote:Someone wants to remind Warnock that he wasted £100 million on crap players when he comes up with these ridiculous statements blaming everyone else!Certainly for us the only players that were successful were his free transfers? The main reasons why he failed In the Premier League with five different clubs was poor signings and out of date tactics not his motivation which is his strength.



I will remind Warnock he saved us from relegation first season and gained promotion the 2nd season earning us £190mill.

Only Dalman says Warnock wasted with their full backing and I don’t ever believe what he says.


If by your reckoning Warnock saved us from relegation, Harris must have done the same in his first season and got us into the playoffs. The internet says promotion is worth £170m over 3 season not £190 m? I believe the board and accounts rather that Warnock when they say he spent £100 plus Staff bonuses and pay increases for promotion, signing on fees/agent fees for loans and frees etc shows where all the money has gone!