Watford close to signing Roma’s Juan Iturbe

Watford close to signing Roma’s Juan Iturbe on loan with £11m buyout option

• Deal would see Victor Ibarbo return from his loan at Watford to Roma
• Iturbe has had a disappointing season so far and only started five games


Juan Iturbe joined Roma from Verona in 2014.

Watford are close to signing Roma’s Argentinian winger Juan Iturbe, initially on loan, with the Colombian forward Victor Ibarbo, already on loan at Vicarage Road from the Giallorossi, returning to his parent club.

Roma spent an initial €22m (£16m) – though the deal has been valued at as much as €31m once signing-on and agents’ fees are taken into consideration – to sign the diminutive Iturbe in 2014, at the end of an impressive season at Verona.

The 22-year-old has failed to recreate that form at the Stadio Olimpico, scoring five times and creating five goals in 55 appearances, with his only goal this season coming against Frosinone in September. They are now willing to let him spend the remainder of the campaign in England in return for a loan fee of around £1m, with Watford having the option of making the transfer permanent at the end of the season for a further £11m.

Iturbe’s career started at the Paraguayan club Cerro Porteño, and he was brought to Europe by Porto in 2011, at the age of 18. After a year and a half in Portugal, in which he did not start a league game, he returned to South America, playing the second half of the 2012-13 season at River Plate before moving to Verona.

He is known for his speed and fluent running with the ball, as well as his dangerous left-footed set pieces, but has found it harder to impress while playing for Roma, whose opponents often play defensively, than he did at his previous club and has also been prone to minor injuries.

Watford, who agreed a £7m deal to sign another Argentinian winger, Genoa’s Diego Perotti, in August only for the player to decide to remain in Italy, would like to spread the burden of goalscoring and creation beyond Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney. Their much-lauded front two have contributed a combined 15 goals during the Hornets’ unexpected rise to their current seventh place in the Premier League, while the remainder of the squad have one goal and two assists between them (with one further goal having been scored by Miguel Layún, now on loan at Porto).

Genoa themselves believed that they had agreed a deal to sign Iturbe in August, only for Roma’s sporting director, Walter Sabatini, to pull out at the 11th hour “because I am convinced that Roma would be weaker if he left”. It was as a result of that change of heart that Ibarbo became available, but those decisions have suited neither Roma nor Watford.

Iturbe has started five games this season and Roma have not won any of them, his inconsistent performances apparently convincing Sabatini to stop waiting for an improvement; Ibarbo, meanwhile, has played just 42 minutes since arriving at Watford on deadline day in August, and has been an unused substitute on six occasions.

He was not in the matchday squad for either of their last two league games. The other player signed by Watford from Roma in the summer, the full-back José Holebas, has not played since August and is expected to be sold again in January.

Guardian