Imran Louza loan: Watford FC must avoid these 2 transfer scenarios before August 30th | OneFootball

The Hornets would do well to avoid these two situations this summer

Watford head into the 2024/25 season looking to improve on their 15th-placed finish last term.

It will be the first season that manager Tom Cleverley has been at the helm from the beginning of the campaign, having taken the role on an interim basis midway through 2023/24 before being handed the job permanently.

The former Manchester United man has impressed in his first senior management role, but there is still work to be done with his current squad.

Here, Football League World looks at two situations the Hornets must avoid this summer...

Loaning Imran Louza out again

Midfielder Imran Louza arrived at Vicarage Road from Ligue 1 outfit Nantes and had a relatively productive first two seasons, particularly in 2022/23 where he netted five goals and provided four assists in just 21 appearances.

Having battled injuries throughout his time with the club, Louza's Watford career truly became unstuck when reports surfaced that his discipline had become an issue, namely timekeeping, which saw him consistently drop out of contention for starts.

He spent the remainder of the 2023/24 season on loan back in Ligue 1, this time with Lorient, but there was no obligation for the French club to buy the Moroccan midfielder.

According to Transfermarkt, Louza is currently one of the most valuable assets in Watford's squad. If Cleverley has no intention of bringing him back into the first-team fold, then the club should move to recoup some of the funds spent on him a few years ago and reinvest that, and the savings from wages, in new players that the Hornets boss will utilise.

Agreeing another similar deal to the one that took him to Lorient, or leaving him to waste on the periphery of the squad, will hold little benefit for Watford, so they must avoid such a scenario and use their asset as much to their advantage as possible.

Letting Yaser Asprilla's transfer saga drag on

One of the brightest sparks at Watford in recent times has been winger Yaser Asprilla, but his situation with the Hornets is far from simple.

It has long been presumed that he would depart Vicarage Road this summer but, with the new season just around the corner, he is still a Watford player.

News arrived that a £25m deal with French side Rennes had been agreed between the two clubs, but that move has now been somewhat clouded by the recent reveal by the Watford Observer that there is a dispute over which agency officially represents the player.

Amid the ongoing saga, it appears unlikely that Asprilla will end up signing another contract with Watford. Bringing him back into the squad seems unlikely too, on account of the fact that he has been absent from pre-season and is not expected to feature on the opening day.

Time is quickly running out in this transfer window and letting this drag on past the deadline would likely see Asprilla's value drop in the next available window, because he is unlikely to have played any football for a while at that point.