Were Watford right to reject a £37.5 million bid for Odion Ighalo?

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World football is rapidly changing; the death of tiki-taka, the ever importance of a good team spirit (just look at Leicester City, Iceland and Wales), and transfer fees hitting new highs as clubs become richer and richer.

The state of the English game is vastly changing in particular, with the new TV rights deal in the Premier League, which has seen the clubs earn more and more money, and is somewhat upsetting the establishment, with, so-called, lesser teams being able to bring in genuine talent into their ranks from overseas – for example Xherdan Shaqiri to Stoke City and Dimitri Payet to West Ham.

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Chinese football is changing too. With the league over in Asia attracting some big name players, as the teams in the division flex their financial muscles, stars such as Jackson Martinez, Alex Teixera, Ramires and, most recently, Hulk all now playing in China. Shanghai SIPG are one of those rich clubs, and recently they tabled a massive £37.5million bid for Watford’s Nigerian striker Odion Ighalo.

The Hornets turned this down, and the question that has arisen is, were they right to do so? For me, anyway, the very simple answer is yes, they were.

Ighalo has been one of Watford’s star men and key players since joining the club in 2014 when they were in the Championship. In just two seasons, the forward has netted an impressive 37 times and bedded into the Premier League with ease after the Hornets’ promotion to the top flight a year ago.

In fact, the pacey, strong attacking player out scored any Arsenal, Liverpool or Manchester United player in the league last term, making him a key man to Watford’s long term successes in the future.

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Furthermore, he is also a great team player, forming great partnerships with his team mates, in particular talisman and striking partner Troy Deeney. Therefore, it is quite apparent that even despite his slight lapse in form after the turn of the year, Watford do not want to lose such a prolific player.

In the past, the might of an astronomical bid like £37.5million would have been way too hard to resist for a so deemed smaller club like Watford, who would more than likely have cashed in on their asset and used the money to refine and improve the rest of their squad. It was expected that the poorer Premier League teams would sooner or later have to sell on their star talents.

However, with all the money that has been brought in with the massive TV deal, those days are gone.

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£37.5million simply does not mean as much to Watford as once would have done, therefore why should they sell Ighalo? Although it is a lot of money and realistically probably more than he is worth, why should the club take the risk of selling him, when they know they have a goalscorer on their books. A new player brought in may not necessarily deliver, despite promise they have shown elsewhere.

The Premier League then is a different scene than it was two or three years ago, and it means next season the establishment are under more pressure than ever before to perform as the smaller teams are closing the gap in terms of resources. Good on Watford for not caving.

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