Something like: Claudio Reyna (Gio's dad) and his wife were good friends with Greg Berhalter (USMNT head coach) and his wife going back to playing days. In the run up to the 2022 World Cup Berhalter told the press that Gio wasn't getting playing time because he was lazy, not training properly, bad for the locker room etc, so Gio's mum went to the US Soccer Federation and told them that Berhalter used to beat his wife, resulting in Berhalter being suspended and investigated. It was all very grubby.
His wages count towards PSR, so will the transfer fee (although I presume delaying that until the summer and presumably spreading it over a long contract, means we can sell Mangala et al in the summer to cover it)
Although Marseille are in for Reyna now, so Mendes will be just pushing for the highest fee.
Maybe he actually wants to play competitive football at a club where he feels comfortable? It's only 6 months, we (or someone, anyway) will still be paying him his whole salary for the next two years after that.
Which sounds very nice but he’s entitled to the full wage that we signed him on. Which we’d have to pay him if he had nowhere to go so can’t imagine we’d prevent a loan move even if Watford were paying a small fraction.
Well sure. But maybe İstanbul Başakşehir were paying more than Watford would and we wouldn’t take the hit, so he had to to make the transfer happen. That’s the implication, isn’t it?
They like to do business late. Even assuming FFP is a significant constraint, I'm saying five in, nine out before the window slams shut and most of those after Arsenal.
I think it has been pretty quiet in the Premier league generally to be fair - I think I saw that there had only been about 4 deals completed or something.