Aston Villa can’t sell Ollie Watkins – they’ve put too much stock into ‘premium’

Whatever plans Aston Villa have for the rest of the summer transfer window, allowing Ollie Watkins to leave cannot be a part of them.

Villa are clearly in a difficult spot when it comes to transfers. Improving the squad year on year is the strategy for every ambitious football club but previous failings and various financial restrictions are making it harder than it should be.

The sale of Aston Villa Women averted the need for a major first team player sale before the Premier League PSR deadline at the end of June but Villa do need to stay compliant over the course of the next year and a sale – albeit one that’s less urgent – is still on the cards.

Villa’s qualification for the Europa League means that UEFA squad cost ratio rules are a consideration too. A miraculous increase in revenue or a tightening up of the wage bill is necessary.

The club will have a plan in place. There will be contingencies and fail-safes and back-ups. No matter what else happens, selling Watkins this summer without a legitimately world-class replacement cannot be one of those options.

I’m yet to see a link with anything approaching credibility. In fact, I’ve seen nothing but the vague chatter of an army of Football Twitter idiots and some mischievous parping from a well-known YouTube mouth-breather who’s desperate for us to be linked with the team he claims to support.

But as long as there’s any whisper of Watkins being a serious target for Manchester United or anyone else, Villa’s hierarchy should be aware that they are not in a position to sell him before the transfer deadline unless his goals are directly and immediately replaced.

They can’t realistically afford to do that if they want to avoid Premier League and UEFA sanctions so that should be the end of that.

Selling Watkins specifically would be a catastrophe on an emotional level but the tangible damage would be purely a matter of goal contributions.

Villa have no reliable or proven understudy for their record Premier League goalscorer, nor the financial wiggle room to account for his loss, and the impact on the status of the club would be swift.

The football reasons not to entertain the idea of selling Watkins are obvious. He might not be Villa’s best player or the most important but he’s probably the hardest to replace.

If Villa slide down the table this season – and this would be the fastest way to do it – they’ve left no room for forgiveness from supporters.

Villa under the ownership of Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens have been an obvious success on the pitch but that’s brought with it an elevation of expectations and presentation.

The need to increase revenue is beyond dispute but it’s hit supporters in the pocket repeatedly in recent years and that value exchange is finely balanced even for the hardiest and most tolerant match-going supporter.

Villa intend to be a big, premium club. Villa’s season ticket prices, match ticket prices, merchandise prices and stadium hospitality growth are those of a big, premium club.

Big, premium clubs don’t let 75 league goals and one of the best Premier League players for total goal contributions walk out of the door with three years left on a contract without a near-robotic goal machine coming in.

If Villa want to present themselves as elite, to frame and price themselves as elite, that’s fine. But they’ll only be elite if they live up to it.

Selling Watkins and suffering the on-field consequences of that in 2025/26 because there’s nobody who can be signed for the same wages and have the same impact would make every ticket, every shirt, every Villa Park seat lost to corporate hospitality look even more expensive.

Whether Unai Emery believes he can do his job to the best of his ability and that the club is matching his ambition if Watkins were to go is something I’d rather not have to think about.

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