No way Pedro: Brighton agree record £30m deal for Joao Pedro
Brighton are set to break the transfer record after agreeing a £30 million deal to sign Watford forward Joao Pedro.
The 21-year-old Brazilian will move to the Amex in the summer having scored 11 goals in 35 Championship appearances for the Hornets this season.
As with every signing the Albion make, Pedro offers versatility. He has been deployed mainly as a centre forward in the current campaign by the 374 different managers Watford have worked through, but can also play as a second striker, a number 10 or wide on the left.
Brighton’s lack of options up front has been laid bare over the past week. Evan Ferguson missed the FA Cup semi final with Manchester United through injury and Danny Welbeck was forced off in the second half, meaning the Albion finished at Wembley with Deniz Undav leading the line.
Undav is yet to convince fans or Roberto De Zerbi that he is good enough for the Premier League in his limited opportunities so far.
With Ferguson still ruled out and Welbeck only fit enough for the bench at Nottingham Forest, De Zerbi opted to play without a recognised centre forward for the trip to the City Ground. Julio Enciso filled the false nine role.
This lack of striker options is nothing new. The Albion have long been crying out for forward reinforcements.
Smashing their previous biggest outlay on a player – the £20 million paid for Adam Webster in the summer of 2019 – by more than £10 million is a big statement of intent.
To reach Brighton, Joao Pedro has been on quite the journey. He started out as a defensive midfielder in the youth system of Fluminese, gradually moving further forward to become an attacking midfielder and then a striker.
Watford identified Pedro’s talent early and paid £2 million for his services in October 2018, when the striker had just turned 17 and was yet to make his Fluminese debut.
Pedro did not wind up at Vicarage Road until January 2020. In the 14 months he remained with Fluiminese, he scored seven goals and registered two assists from 28 appearances.
Remarkably, all seven came in a sensational spell of four matches, just one month after Pedro made his Fluminese debut.
The run started when he came off the bench to score an injury time equaliser at home to Cruzeiro in the Brazilian Cup.
Two days later and Pedro scored twice as a substitute against the same opponents in a 4-1 league win. Pedro then marked his full debut for Fluminese with a first half hat-trick in a 4-1 Copa Sudamericana victory over Atletico Nacional.
Such form attracted the attentions of Liverpool and AC Milan amongst others. Rumours began to swirl that a European giant could buy Pedro – but to do so they would need to agree a fee with both Fluminese and pay Watford £20 million in compensation.
That did not happen and so Pedro officially became a Hornet. He made three substitute appearances in the Premier League in the second half of the 2019-20 season as Watford were relegated, appeared once off the bench in the FA Cup and made his only start in a 2-1 third round replay defeat at Tranmere Rovers.
Pedro played a full role in 2020-21 as Watford won immediate promotion from the Championship. He made 38 appearances, contributing four assists and nine goals to finish second top scorer after Ismaila Sarr.
He found the Premier League in 2021-22 a little harder going. The Hornets yo-yo existence continued with another relegation, Pedro scoring three goals in 28 games.
2022-23 has become something of a breakthrough season back in the Championship despite Watford failing to fire. Pedro has four assists to go with his 11 goals
Those figures would be higher too had he not missed six games just after Christmas with an ankle injury.
The potential Pedro has shown has reignited the interest of AC Milan, who according to reports were “bewitched” by the Brazilian, viewing him as a long-term successor to their aging striker options Olivier Giroud and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Newcastle United were also reported to be close to signing Pedro during the January transfer window. Brighton swooping in to complete the deal with eight games of the Premier League season still to play has enabled them to beat the Saudi Sportswashers to his signature.
Watford have an impressive pedigree when it comes to signing young players from South America, something which is often overlooked because they are a managerial basketcase.
A year before they purchased Pedro from Fluminese, the Hornets signed Richarlison direct from the same Brazilian club for £13 million. 12 months later and Richarlison departed for a huge profit in a £40 million move to Everton.
A certain Pervis Estupinan was also initially discovered and brought to Europe by Watford when at Ecuadorian top flight side LDU Quito, although he never played a game for the Hornets.
If Joao Pedro can go onto be as much of a success for Brighton as Estupinan has, then it will be money well spent.
