Thursday, February 14, 2002

Watford announce the transfer listing of five internationals: record signing Allan Nielsen, Espen Baardsen, and three more recent recruits in Ramon Vega, Pierre Issa and Marcus Gayle.

"This is a three-year plan and it would be foolish to think that we could achieve our goals without some rethink along the way," reflected manager Gianluca Vialli.

Baardsen, Vega and Issa had already played their final games for the Hornets, but Gayle was to be converted to centre-back by Vialli's successor Ray Lewington, a position from which he would win the Player of the Season award the following year.

Reproduced by kind permission of Matt Rowson from his book, Watford FC On This Day