The well-trodden path from Udinese to Watford is seeing plenty of action this summer, five players completing switches from Gino Pozzo's Italian club.
But, in terms of volume, nothing is likely to beat the summer of 2012, when Pozzo first bought the Hornets.
Taking on a cash-strapped club, with a squad that was middling at best, Pozzo set about rapidly upgrading it the quickest way he knew how.
An extraordinary flurry of activity dominated July and August 2012, as the Italian plucked 12 players out of (apparent) obscurity and sent them to Hertfordshire.
The result were electric. Concerns over whether a group of (largely) young men would really engage with a club they had presumably hardly heard of proved unfounded, as goodwill from supporters and the allure of playing for Gianfranco Zola created a memorable bond between those in the stands and on the pitch.
Combined with a number of seasoned pros – Lloyd Doyley, Nyron Nosworthy, John Eustace, Jonathan Hogg and Troy Deeney – everything seemed to click, Zola's men rampantly running out as the division's top goalscorers, despite protestations from Ian Holloway and others about bending rules.
'What happens when the loans go back?!' – well, they all sign permanently instead.
They fell short of promotion twice – once when failing to beat Leeds to pip Hull to second on the final day, then at Wembley when they didn't turn up and lost 1-0 to Crystal Palace – but memories of the happy days are most prominent now.
The best of them, clearly, was Deeney's globally-recognised play-off semi-final winner against Leicester City, but crushing victories over Brighton, Nottingham Forest, Huddersfield and others produced some of the most swashbuckling football Watford have ever played.
Not that all the loans worked out, there are a fair few in this list who are merely awkward answers in Sporcle quizzes, but several of them remain hugely popular figures at Vicarage Road.
The 12 were as follows:
Almen Abdi (30 July)
The players generally arrived in two blocks, the first of which were confirmed at the end of July – with Abdi leading the way, in more ways than one.
Midfielders with with Abdi's feather touch, vision and craft just didn't really play for Watford at that time and the Swiss maestro, more than anybody else, immediately took the early stages of the Pozzo project to a whole new level.
The best technical player in the entire division, Abdi knitted everything together with an understanding of space and weight of pass that saw him win the club's Player of the Season award ahead of the Championship Player of the Season, Matej Vydra.
He was sensational that year and very good in the promotion-winning campaign of 2014/15, spending one season in the Premier League before his career fizzled out at Sheffield Wednesday.
Ikechi Anya (30 July)
Anya lacked the finesse of Abdi, but his blistering pace saw him grow in prominence during that first season.
It was initially tough to see where a flying winger lacking in technical skills would fit in Zola's 3-5-2 system, but he knuckled down and learned his craft as a wing-back, eventually proving undroppable down the right side.
The Scottish international, famed for having come through the Glenn Hoddle Academy, stayed for four years – like Abdi – before moving back down a level with Derby County.
Steve Leo Beleck (30 July)
They were never all going to work, and Beleck is probably the poster boy for the contingent who failed to cut it at Vicarage Road.
After failing to impress at home to Bradford City in the EFL Cup in August 2012, it already seemed obvious Beleck wasn't going to make the grade – particularly with Deeney soon returning out of jail, and Chris Iwelumo still at the club.
The forward is probably best remembered for bizarrely being loaned by his loan club – Watford sending him to Stevenage when it emerged that international loans technically counted as one-year permanent deals, allowing the Hornets to do what they liked with him.
He spent the rest of career trotting around Europe before retiring aged 30.
Daniel Pudil (30 July)
Left-back had been a problem position for a few years at Watford, who were forced to use Lloyd Doyley on his wrong side for several seasons with finances restricting them in such a specialist market.
Carl Dickinson had been the latest to have a crack, and started this season in the team, but Pudil was clearly an upgrade and the Hornets' best player in this position for some time.
He, like Anya, signed from Granada instead of Udinese and was a solid member of this side, though probably not quite at the level of some of his contemporaries – and did eventually lose his spot when Anya switched sides during 2014/15.
Pudil, though, chucked himself into the community and genuinely seemed to love Watford, a key figure in convincing fans that this group were committing properly.
Matej Vydra (30 July)
During a brief spell from December-January of 2012/13, was Vydra operating at a higher level than any striker in Watford history?
OK, others have done it at the top level, but bagging a brace in five consecutive league starts was an extraordinary streak of form, during which Vydra simply couldn’t miss.
His unerring finishing ability, complemented beautifully by the ability of Deeney and Abdi to find him, meant a goal was inevitable as soon as he raced through.
Such was his quality, there was a sense at that stage of the season that automatic promotion was inevitable, but though he dropped off, he was still key in promotion two years later.
Alex Geijo (9 August)
Geijo would have had a better crack of the whip had Deeney not stamped his authority all over the number nine position so quickly.
The Spaniard had the odd moment, scoring a big goal in a 4-1 win at Sheffield Wednesday, but ultimately was no Deeney, who the club had not really been planning around in July.
One instalment of the Vydra story is that the Czech international started the Wembley final unfit, with Geijo actually fielded for 75 of the 120 minutes after replacing him at half-time.
His lack of impact that day probably summed up his Watford career and he was not retained that summer.
Marco Cassetti (23 August)
In terms of the structure of the deal (if not the pedigree), Cassetti was very much the 2012 version of Omar Traore, signing on a free for Udinese and immediately being sent to England.
While the early impressions were not great, Cassetti clearly had no pace and wasn't used to the rough-and-tumble of the division, he quickly learned and started to show off why he had been good enough to play 198 games for Roma.
The status of the Cassetti signing meant something, too; he had been capped five times for Italy and represented the type of figure Pozzo was able to get his hands on.
He was arguably never as effective as he was aesthetically-pleasing, but Cassetti still marked himself out as a fan favourite.
Cristian Battocchio (31 August)
On the final day of the summer transfer window, Pozzo threw caution to the wind and brought in another raft of loanees, memorably selling seasoned campaigner Martin Taylor to Sheffield Wednesday to help create space.
Battocchio was one of those, a midfielder with great enthusiasm, though arguably never quite suited to the rigours of English football.
The Argentine rotated with Jonathan Hogg alongside Nathaniel Chalobah and Abdi in midfield, though Hogg was ultimately selected at Wembley and felt like he was marginally favoured in that match-up.
Battocchio still had his moments, though, and his bromance with Fernando Forestieri was a fun side-story of that season.
Jean-Alain Fanchone (31 August)
With Beleck, Fanchone is among the toughest Sporcle answers of the entire Pozzo era.
The Frenchman came in as left-back competition for Pudil but only played once, away at Blackburn in October, and saw his loan cut short in January 2013.
Not all of these signings were going to work and this one didn't.
Fernando Forestieri (31 August)
For the mastery of Abdi and clinicality of Vydra, it wouldn't be a shock if a poll of Watford fans recognised Forestieri as the most popular of all these signings.
The forward was a bag of energy and tricks, infuriating and delighting in the way he'd beat a man, turn back to do it again, and fleetingly produce moments of total genius that could have propelled him to a career at the highest level.
Ultimately, Forestier's actual output never quite matched his ability – and it was notable that he was squeezed out completely by Vydra and Odion Ighalo alongside Deeney two years later.
But that doesn't really paint the picture of Forestieri's maverick nature and the joy he provided. He fell in love with the club to the extent that he was the only loanee to make his move permanent early, signing a five-year deal in January 2013.
Joel Ekstrand (31 August)
Ekstrand was the Taylor replacement, a move that convinced few at the time but aged fairly well.
Once he had settled down, and ironed out a few wobbly moments, Ekstrand was a solid centre-back and played at the heart of the back three in the final weeks of the season.
He would stick around for a couple more years, overcoming serious injuries to play his part in the eventual 2015 promotion.
Neuton (31 August)
A strange case, Neuton had some ability but was probably an example of the new regime underestimating the physicality and experience required to cope at the level.
Ultimately, he made far too many mistakes, and his risky brand of playing out from the back didn't suit the team when, first, it was being stitched together on the job and, second, targeting promotion.
Neuton ended up on a tour of Brazil for the majority of his career, retiring aged 31, and is not remembered among the core of this squad.
Share