Aston Villa lost 4-0 at Brighton on Sunday without a recognised centre-forward on the pitch or the bench. Victor Lindelof turned into his own net after eight minutes, Maxim De Cuyper made it two on 18, and Jack Hinshelwood scored twice inside 60 seconds either side of the half-hour. Joao Gomes was sent off on 40 minutes on his league debut. Ollie Watkins, who has scored 108 goals for the club, watched none of it from the squad.
He had barely trained in the build-up. Al Hilal have made four offers, all rejected — the most recent worth around £45m, an earlier one £38.5m. Villa want £55m. Watkins has agreed personal terms in Saudi Arabia and turned down a new four-year contract at Villa Park. With roughly ten days of the window left, the two clubs are close on everything except the fee.
The player Villa were sure would stay
This is the part Villa did not plan for. When Morgan Rogers left for Chelsea in a British record deal worth £117m, when Ezri Konsa went to Arsenal for £51m, when Youri Tielemans and Lucas Digne were allowed to go, the internal logic held because Watkins was the constant. Emiliano Martinez asking to leave for a second consecutive summer was absorbed — Villa had already signed Zion Suzuki from Parma for £29.9m. The striker was the one non-negotiable.
Unai Emery’s language has shifted accordingly. “We have an issue with him, it’s clear,” he said last week. “He is another player, we have had offers for him. He is our player, I don’t want to sell him. It can change because if it is a good option for him, good option for the club and I can replace him in the squad.”
That last clause is the whole story. Villa have been linked with Chelsea’s Nicolas Jackson, but a replacement bought in the final week of a window is a replacement bought at someone else’s price. After Brighton, Emery was blunter about the performance than about the transfer: “We started the first 10-15 minutes very well. Then I can’t understand exactly why we lost in 20 minutes all the match and a player.”
What £28m bought
Villa paid Brentford £28m for Watkins in September 2020, when the club had finished 17th and stayed up on the final day. He has since made 278 appearances, scored 108 goals and added 47 assists. In May 2025 he scored the winner at Bournemouth to reach 75 Premier League goals in 182 league games for Villa, passing Gabby Agbonlahor’s 74 to become the club’s record scorer in the competition. Last season he managed 21 goals and five assists in 55 matches, 16 of them in the league.
The numbers understate what he represented. Watkins arrived as a Championship promotion winner and became the striker who led Villa back into the Champions League. For England, he came off the bench in the Euro 2024 semi-final in Dortmund, took Cole Palmer’s pass, turned and finished low across Bart Verbruggen in the 91st minute to beat the Netherlands and send England to a final on foreign soil for the first time.
Al Hilal want him to replace Karim Benzema, who scored 10 goals in 15 appearances after joining from Al Ittihad in February on an 18-month deal and is leaving this summer. At 30, with a World Cup squad place secured this year, Watkins is being offered a contract Villa cannot match.
Ten days that define the season
Villa’s position is defensible and precarious at once. They have banked significant fees, signed Matteo Ruggeri for £21.4m from Atletico Madrid, added Alejandro Garnacho, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Gomes, Suzuki and Johan Manzambi, and reshaped a squad that had grown expensive. But a rebuild only works if the spine survives it. Rogers, Konsa and Watkins in one window is not a rebuild; it is a reset.
The financial argument for selling is real: £55m for a 30-year-old whose resale value only falls from here, with Profit and Sustainability headroom to protect. The football argument is that Villa have already conceded four goals in 31 minutes while fielding no striker at all, and that Emery has no obvious internal answer.
Watkins has decided. Villa have not — and the difference between those two positions is now a matter of days, not principle. If he goes, Villa will have sold the man who scored more Premier League goals for them than anyone in their history, in the same summer they sold their best young attacker and their first-choice centre-back. Sunday at the Amex was a preview, not an aberration.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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