Watford completes reported £2.3M snip for Zarate from Fiorentina

Mauro Zarate is back.

The former Birmingham City, West Ham United, and Queens Park Rangers forward has signed a two-and-a-half-year contract at Watford, the Hornets announced Wednesday, ending a one-year stay with Fiorentina in Serie A.

The cost of his transfer to Vicarage Road is just £2.3 million, according to reports late last week.

Zarate, 29, began his professional career with Velez Sarsfield in his native Argentina, and has since took in stints with Qatar's Al Sadd, Birmingham, Lazio, Inter Milan, Velez Sarsfield again, West Ham, QPR, and Fiorentina.

His nomadic travels have seldom seen him hit regular goal-scoring form, with his most prolific term coming in 2008-09 with the 13 league goals he scored for Lazio. He made just one Serie A start for Fiorentina this season, but bagged a goal in each of his substitute appearances against Lazio and Napoli in December.

Zarate will wear No. 20 at Watford, and manager Walter Mazzarri hopes he can offer firepower to a strike force that's leaned on the brutish Troy Deeney and creative spark of Etienne Capoue going forward this campaign. Odion Ighalo perhaps epitomises the Hornets' lack of sting, with just three goals in his last 36 Premier League matches after 13 in his first 19.

Zarate last featured for Fiorentina in a Coppa Italia clash with Chievo Verona on Jan. 11, during which he was sent off in the 71st minute. That suspension carries over to England, meaning he'll miss Saturday's FA Cup trip to Millwall and the Premier League meeting with Arsenal three days later.