“ Max Watters “

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Max Watters yet to kick a ball


Max Watters aged 22 is said by the Cardiff board to be one of the future stars for Cardiff City.

Watters after being praised highly by the Cardiff City board and local media was then loaned out to League one MK Dons after only three appearances as substitute for the Bluebirds.


Watters signed on the 16th January 2021 with the club announcing the striker costing them up to £1m from Crawley Town.


The striker aged 22 is yet to start for the Welsh club.



Football insider

Monday 6th September 2021


Cardiff striker Max Watters has yet to kick a ball in anger for loan side MK Dons this term.

The 22-year-old missed MK's 1-1 draw with Cheltenham at the weekend after he picked up an ankle injury during pre-season.

The forward has played very little football this calendar year, failing to break into McCarthy's first-team plans in the second half of the 2020-21 campaign.

His head coach Liam Manning said on his growing injury list : “It's too big for my liking but every coach says that when they've got one player out. Max stepped up a bit today and joined in with a tiny part of training so he's progressing.

"We got Mo (Eisa)'s results, but I need to spend some time with Adam Ross to find out what his plan is. These days, we're a bit non-committal in terms of time frames because we don’t know how he'll progress or how he'll respond to treatments. He has a groin injury.”

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Cardiff City have made their first signing of the January transfer window with the capture of striker Max Watters from Crawley Town.

By Glen Williams

16th January 2021

A deal costing the Bluebirds up to £1m.

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My view:

The board totally signed Watters, nothing to do with management.

I don’t actually believe we paid anything near and even £50,000 would of been about right at best.
Personally I believe Glen Williams put out what they told him to write and it was to make out we were spending otherwise they are way way more foolish than we thought.

Why would you pay that much for a 22 year old striker that has had a good 4 months in the lower leagues?

Just look at his career.

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It was a strange signing.

I've made the comparison with Eoin Doyle before and I stand by that. He can score goals in League Two and will probably do a job in League One, but not good enough for the Championship.

Whether it was £1m or £500,000, it was not money well spent.

It was a strange signing.

I've made the comparison with Eoin Doyle before and I stand by that. He can score goals in League Two and will probably do a job in League One, but not good enough for the Championship.

Whether it was £1m or £500,000, it was not money well spent.

Ned,

It was a signing that the Committee came up with as they without really looking in it, decided we are totally changing direction and lowering the age etc
I agree money once again badly wasted.


What I don’t understand is why is Glen Williams etc making out every new signing are some super players???

Reply FB:

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He scored for them during pre-season, but then picked up an injury and has been out since. Definitely a risk signing, someone who excites me though. Hopefully he gets fit and some game time, so we can see what he can achieve in League One.

He scored for them during pre-season, but then picked up an injury and has been out since. Definitely a risk signing, someone who excites me though. Hopefully he gets fit and some game time, so we can see what he can achieve in League One.

Not sure the point of this thread. As you rightly point out he hasn't played because he picked up an injury in pre-season.

Therefore it is odd that he and the committee are being criticised now rather than after he has had a run of games

Once we see how things have worked out for him @ MK Dons then would be the time to comment and weigh up whether the transfer fee was wasted.

Reply FB:

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He scored for them during pre-season, but then picked up an injury and has been out since. Definitely a risk signing, someone who excites me though. Hopefully he gets fit and some game time, so we can see what he can achieve in League One.

Not sure the point of this thread. As you rightly point out he hasn't played because he picked up an injury in pre-season.

Therefore it is odd that he and the committee are being criticised now rather than after he has had a run of games

Once we see how things have worked out for him @ MK Dons then would be the time to comment and weigh up whether the transfer fee was wasted.

First of all Tony, I never wrote the article, but the article is keeping us updated on one of our players


Do I think we wasted money yes on a 22yr old who I feel is not a Championship player.

Is the article correct virtually, but I don’t believe it was ever more than £200,000
Max.

200kis my understanding and whilst a waste of money its nothing in comparison to the likes of many others signed by previous managers

Can't say for sure if it was a waste of money yet as have was never really given a run out for us and hasn't played in a competitive match for MKD yet. Bit of a surprise signing though as we seem to have adopted a policy of playing with a lone striker who has almost inevitably to be a big bloke who can hold the ball up and is good in the air. It sounds like Watters is a goal poacher type who needs to play alongside another striker therefore not really our type. Would not surprise me if he came good in the right set up as he did at Crawley.

The lad is 22 ,he needs games before anyone decides what level he is at, wasn't Vardy languishing at the lower levels at 22 showing very little promise?

The lad is 22 ,he needs games before anyone decides what level he is at, wasn't Vardy languishing at the lower levels at 22 showing very little promise?

Jamie Vardy is an extreme example.

That's because he was played in the low levels of non-league for most of his years and was a very late developer.

We can't keep hold of Watters for six or seven years in case he ends up being good one day.

I think it's true to say that having had 11 different clubs at age 22, Watters still has a fair bit of development to go.

Usually a player with so many moves is down to a different reasons: a talented player who is inconsistent, has a poor attitude or just bad luck.

I have never heard anything about Watters attitude so I assume successive coaches have failed to nail down some consistency in his performances.

Obviously the lad needs to find his level and stick with it for a few years and not bounced all around the place.

He may or may not achieve championship level, but lets see.

One thing is obvious though is that he wasn't a signing the manager (Harris) wanted and was a transfer that was chosen by the transfer committee, which is a ridiculous way to run a club.

He scored for them during pre-season, but then picked up an injury and has been out since. Definitely a risk signing, someone who excites me though. Hopefully he gets fit and some game time, so we can see what he can achieve in League One.

Not sure the point of this thread. As you rightly point out he hasn't played because he picked up an injury in pre-season.

Therefore it is odd that he and the committee are being criticised now rather than after he has had a run of games

Once we see how things have worked out for him @ MK Dons then would be the time to comment and weigh up whether the transfer fee was wasted.

First of all Tony, I never wrote the article, but the article is keeping us updated on one of our players


Do I think we wasted money yes on a 22yr old who I feel is not a Championship player.

Is the article correct virtually, but I don’t believe it was ever more than £200,000
Max.

And the point I'm making is you have jumped to a conclusion even though the player hasn't been given a chance to prove himself at MK Dons due to injury.

He may well turn out to be a dud or he could do a Jamie Vardy or he could be middle of the road and someone will give us our £50k-200k back. We don't know yet so give everyone a little slack.

My view:

The board totally signed Watters, nothing to do with management.

I don’t actually believe we paid anything near and even £50,000 would of been about right at best.
Personally I believe Glen Williams put out what they told him to write and it was to make out we were spending otherwise they are way way more foolish than we thought.

Why would you pay that much for a 22 year old striker that has had a good 4 months in the lower leagues?

Just look at his career.

But how do we know that this signing wasn't anything to do with management

His signing was confirmed 5 days before Harris's departure was confirmed. The likelihood is that it was actually completed way before then as most transfers are unless on deadline day.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Watters has the pace or natural ability to be a success at this level, but nor do I believe we spent anywhere near £1m for him, in which case he could yet prove to be a chance worth taking should he either make it with us or we recoup our money.

It's pretty standard practise for clubs to agree between them what the public fee would be, even on that Premier League documentary it was admitted that publicly it was announced that Man Utd paid £1.2m for Cantona whereas they only actually paid £1m. The Leeds chairman just felt it was easier to justify the sale to the Leeds fans at the higher figure !!

Harris has not come out since his departure and said he didn't want Watters, nor has Watters intimated anything like that. So why are we being asked to believe that this was a "transfer committee" signing, yet more successful ones like Moore, Giles, etc., aren't ?

Either they are all transfer committee signings or they aren't. Lately I'd say signings have been pretty promising so something is going right, even if there haven't been as many of them as most of us would like !!

My view:

The board totally signed Watters, nothing to do with management.

I don’t actually believe we paid anything near and even £50,000 would of been about right at best.
Personally I believe Glen Williams put out what they told him to write and it was to make out we were spending otherwise they are way way more foolish than we thought.

Why would you pay that much for a 22 year old striker that has had a good 4 months in the lower leagues?

Just look at his career.

But how do we know that this signing wasn't anything to do with management

His signing was confirmed 5 days before Harris's departure was confirmed. The likelihood is that it was actually completed way before then as most transfers are unless on deadline day.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Watters has the pace or natural ability to be a success at this level, but nor do I believe we spent anywhere near £1m for him, in which case he could yet prove to be a chance worth taking should he either make it with us or we recoup our money.

It's pretty standard practise for clubs to agree between them what the public fee would be, even on that Premier League documentary it was admitted that publicly it was announced that Man Utd paid £1.2m for Cantona whereas they only actually paid £1m. The Leeds chairman just felt it was easier to justify the sale to the Leeds fans at the higher figure !!

Harris has not come out since his departure and said he didn't want Watters, nor has Watters intimated anything like that. So why are we being asked to believe that this was a "transfer committee" signing, yet more successful ones like Moore, Giles, etc., aren't ?

Either they are all transfer committee signings or they aren't. Lately I'd say signings have been pretty promising so something is going right, even if there haven't been as many of them as most of us would like !!

It is well known Watters was signed by the (so called) Committee and Neil Harris had nothing to do with it...

Dud or not? Only time (and opportunity) will tell...!

Not a good signing yet... However, if he scores 20 goals for MK Dons all of a sudden he's worth £5m

Not a good signing yet... However, if he scores 20 goals for MK Dons all of a sudden he's worth £5m

At right back yeah he will be worth that.

Compared to Saint Malky Mackay signing Cornelius, this looks like good business

My view:

The board totally signed Watters, nothing to do with management.

I don’t actually believe we paid anything near and even £50,000 would of been about right at best.
Personally I believe Glen Williams put out what they told him to write and it was to make out we were spending otherwise they are way way more foolish than we thought.

Why would you pay that much for a 22 year old striker that has had a good 4 months in the lower leagues?

Just look at his career.

But how do we know that this signing wasn't anything to do with management

His signing was confirmed 5 days before Harris's departure was confirmed. The likelihood is that it was actually completed way before then as most transfers are unless on deadline day.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Watters has the pace or natural ability to be a success at this level, but nor do I believe we spent anywhere near £1m for him, in which case he could yet prove to be a chance worth taking should he either make it with us or we recoup our money.

It's pretty standard practise for clubs to agree between them what the public fee would be, even on that Premier League documentary it was admitted that publicly it was announced that Man Utd paid £1.2m for Cantona whereas they only actually paid £1m. The Leeds chairman just felt it was easier to justify the sale to the Leeds fans at the higher figure !!

Harris has not come out since his departure and said he didn't want Watters, nor has Watters intimated anything like that. So why are we being asked to believe that this was a "transfer committee" signing, yet more successful ones like Moore, Giles, etc., aren't ?

Either they are all transfer committee signings or they aren't. Lately I'd say signings have been pretty promising so something is going right, even if there haven't been as many of them as most of us would like !!

It is well known Watters was signed by the (so called) Committee and Neil Harris had nothing to do with it...

Dud or not? Only time (and opportunity) will tell...!

Just because it is said by somebody on a Cardiff City forum doesn’t make it fact.

At what point has anyone from the board, management team. agent or player said this was a signing made by the transfer committee.

I’ll tell you !! At NO point has anyone with actual knowledge of the transaction confirmed or denied such details !!

Until I see/hear that, I will have my own views but keep an open mind !!

Compared to Saint Malky Mackay signing Cornelius, this looks like good business

Old hat, I could list 10 more awful signings since.

At least Saint Malky Won the Championship and brought in £200mill Promotion/Cup final/ Play-offs, attendances etc etc etc

Wasnt promotion that year worth 120m not 200m?? This club & previous managers have wasted umpteen millions upon millions of £'s, and we talking peanuts for watters, who may still come good? Im prepared to see how he goes at mk dons before writing him off completely. CCFC!!

Wasnt promotion that year worth 120m not 200m?? This club & previous managers have wasted umpteen millions upon millions of £'s, and we talking peanuts for watters, who may still come good? Im prepared to see how he goes at mk dons before writing him off completely. CCFC!!

If you read I am not just on about promotion, I am on about during Malkys time, Cup run, Cup final, attendances increased massively, merchandise, advertising, catering, sponsors etc etc