As far as I can tell, the sale of Toumani Diagouraga to Hereford a couple of weeks ago puts an end to the much-vaunted ‘French connection’ that saw talented young players plucked from the Parisian suburbs and whisked off to Vicarage Road (or London Colney, at any rate). There were articles in the Watford Observer and on the club website, and a general sense that we’d stolen a march on bigger clubs by scouting players they hadn’t spotted.
But what did it all amount to in the end? Diagouraga, touted a year or two back as ‘the new Vieira’, only managed six first-team appearances – and three of those were in the League Cup. Now he seems to have found his level a couple of divisions lower down the league.
Then there were Marvin Homand and Gauthier Diafutua, neither of whom got within a sniff of the first-team squad, disappearing quietly out of the back door after a season or two in the reserves. A quick Google reveals that Diafutua is now with AFC Tubize, newly promoted to the Belgian 1st Division, while Homand is nowhere to be found.
The exception, of course, is Hameur Bouazza, who we got one half-decent season out of before he decided he was destined for bigger things and buggered off to Fulham. (I noticed the other day that they’re thinking of lending him to Charlton this year - so much for bigger things...)
Maybe the money we got for Hameur paid for the whole operation, and a one in four success rate – however briefly we got to enjoy that success – isn’t so bad. But I can’t help feeling sad that what was talked up as a potential injection of gallic flair into the Hornets squad ended up producing about as much invigoration as a couple of cans of Red Bull.
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