Watford manager Rob Edwards has admitted that Newcastle’s opening bid for João Pedro was “not anywhere near” the price they’d expect for the 20-year-old forward.
That said, he’s also offered a glimmer of hope in our pursuit of the highly-rated Brazilian, accepting that any new offers will be considered by the club.
Considering the message coming out of Vicarage Road was “not for sale” on Monday, it seems the Championship side haven’t taken long to change their tune.
However, it’s clear our next bid – which appears to be imminent – must be considerably higher if we want to bring the striker to St James’ Park.
Here’s what Edwards just told The Athletic when quizzed on our bid – of around £20m – for Pedro:
“The bid that has come in that’s been talked about, it’s not anywhere near the level that we’d expect it to be for him.
”If anything else was to come in again, then we’ll sit down and talk about it as a club and as a board.”
So, it seems our opening offer is being considered derisory, but the second line suggests there’s still a deal to be done here.
The Hornets boss also had this to say on Tuesday night, following Watford’s 1-1 draw with Birmingham City:
“Joao Pedro is already a very good player, I think he’s going to be an excellent footballer.
“I do believe this is the right place for him at the moment. I think he would really benefit from playing a full season with us and obviously helping the football club to where we want to be.
“I think he can play a huge part in that. I think he’s fully committed to that. He’s so mature for a young age and he understands what he needs to do as well.
“With him, you wouldn’t know anything was going on at all, he’s fully focused on his job and fully focused on playing for this football club. I think you could see that, probably one or two little bits I’d expect him to be slightly better in at the top end of the pitch, but I thought his commitment and some of the stuff he did was first class.
“The amazing thing about Joao is he’s so intelligent, I can play him in different areas of the pitch and he still finds a way to influence the game even when we went 4-4-2 at the end to really try and push, put him out on the right and he still finds the right spaces and trying to create.
“Joao is fully committed on the here and now and obviously he can’t control anything that happens externally so he’s dealing with everything very, very well.”
