Ravaglia flies in to sign permanent deal with Watford

Federico Ravaglia flew to the UK last night (Thursday) ahead of signing a permanent deal with Watford.

The goalkeeper, who played 25 matches for Serie A side Bologna last season, is set to become the Hornets' second summer signing, after Omar Traore's arrival on Thursday .

The Watford Observer has been told the move should kickstart a a stepping up of Watford's transfer activity, with central midfielders and a striker among the positions targeted to bulk out Alessio Dionisi's squad.

More: Watford in advanced talks to sign left-back and striker from Udinese

Ravaglia, 26, stands at 6'6 and adds to a goalkeeping department that has lost Nathan Baxter to Leyton Orient this summer.

Egil Selvik's future is unclear, though it has been reported in Italy that a move to sister club Udinese could be in the offing.

In pre-season friendlies at Boreham Wood and Barnet this week, Daniel Bachmann and Alfie Marriott have shared the minutes, both of whom possess the advantage of counting as homegrown as potential number two stoppers.

Traore signed a three-year deal from Udinese, the Hornets paying an undisclosed fee for a player who had only just signed on a free transfer from Heidenheim in the Bundesliga.

Dionisi was restricted to using 10 available senior players at Boreham Wood last Saturday and 11 on Tuesday at Barnet , where the 'B-team' players started the game.

Selvik, Edo Kayembe and Nestory Irankunda are currently due to return from World Cup duty after a break, while Jeremy Ngakia, Jack Grieves and Rocco Vata are still working to get fit and Imran Louza - likely to leave - is still a couple of weeks behind the others after his late arrival for pre-season.

There is still an acknowledgement that several new signings are required, though, with just two senior centre-backs on the books and numbers in more advanced areas also light after 10 first-team departures this summer.

It is hoped that a flurry of business will follow the arrivals of Ravaglia and Traore, with group technical director Gian Luca Nani recently admitting the club need "many players".

Gian Luca Nani (Image: Alan Cozzi/Watford FC)

He said earlier this month: "The team, of course, is not complete.

"It's not even the start of the campaign. We have our target and we want to reach our target.

"We are working hard – believe me, really hard – and we are travelling a lot. We are trying to co-ordinate all our assets and information that we have all over the world to try to complete the team as soon as possible.

"We need to bring many players in many positions, but we prefer to wait a bit to reach to go to our first target than go to the first player coming through from the street.

"I don't want to have too many players, I want to have the players that we want. Sometimes we have to wait because also the other clubs, the other teams, are trying to do the same job.

"I'm confident that at the end of the market that we will be happy with the job we have done."

Chairman Scott Duxbury stressed the need to recruit more players with EFL experience at the end of last season, though both Nani and sporting director Luke Dowling have since claimed those types of deals are expensive and harder to do.

Dowling said in June : "We are looking for the best players that we can sign.

"Of course, it would be much better to have players that know the league – English players are the most expensive but we need them, we would like to create the English spirit in our team.

"But when you open the market you have much more chance to get better players with maybe not a high price. If we work in one market, the price really goes up."