Source: FOOTYMAD
Watford complete Iwelumo deal
Chris Iwelumo has today signed a two year deal with Championship rivals Watford after just a year at Turf Moor. Iwelumo signed for Burnley on 1st June of last year, the second of four summer signings made by Brian Laws following relegation from the Premier League. He arrived from Wolves for a fee that is believed to be significantly lower than the £500,000 quoted at the time. He scored on his Burnley debut, the only goal in an opening day win against Nottingham Forest, and went on to score eight goals in the first six home games including a sensational hat trick as Burnley beat Preston 4-3 with an unbelievable late comeback. For a short time he was the league's leading scorer and when he netted a goal in the 4-2 New Year's Day win against Sheffield United in the first post-Laws game, he looked set for a 20 goal haul. Things changed. Iwelumo didn't score another home goal and added just the one goal, ironically at Watford, which was his only away goal for Burnley. He was used much less frequently as was often used as a substitute. By then he was getting some stick from the Burnley fans and that's not changed, certainly with some of the comments on the message board with the news of his leaving. However, the stats, and I know you can make what you want of stats, don't really suggest he was anything like as bad as people would make out. He started 29 league games for Burnley in which we won 48 points at 1.66 points per game (76 points over a season) and yet just 20 points in 17 games when he didn't start at 1.18 points per game (54 points over a season). Make of it what you will, but Iwelumo will now be playing his football for Watford and we can expect to see him back at Turf Moor for the opening game of the season in two and a half weeks time.
