Irreplaceable Ollie Watkins must now be Aston Villa transfer priority even at the expense of new signings

The summer transfer window comes to an end at 7.00pm on Monday 1st September and it can’t close fast enough.

Aston Villa will have played three Premier League matches by then, against Newcastle United, Brentford and Crystal Palace. With less than a month left of the transfer window and just 11 days before the league opener against Eddie Howe’s Magpies, it’s fair to say that Villa’s transfer strategy for this summer has come to a crossroads.

Business has been limited. Villa have signed veteran goalkeeper Marco Bizot, teenage striker Zépiqueno Redmond and midfielder Modou Kéba Cissé on a pre-contract deal that won’t come into effect for another year. Apart from a few fringe player departures, that’s basically it.

Without getting into the unfavourable comparisons between Villa’s spending power and the utterly unhinged summer splurge undertaken by certain other Premier League teams, there’s little doubt that Monchi, Damian Vidagany and Unai Emery want to bring new players to the club.

In order to do that and remain compliant with the straitjacket of financial regulations, it’s believed that Villa needed to sell at least one player who’d expect to be in and the starting eleven. Future PSR considerations need to be kept in mind and the wage bill needs to be addressed. Villa can’t just spend whatever they want.

Now, with no such player sold and the season right around the corner, Monchi and his comrades might just be looking at a slight shift of focus.

It’s time for Villa to lock it down

Villa play Newcastle in under two weeks’ time. In my opinion, we’ve reached the point in pre-season at which an unwanted sale could prove catastrophic unless an exceptional replacement is found first.

Protecting what they have should be Villa’s priority. Improvements are needed in certain areas but they haven’t been forthcoming up to this point and pragmatism has a role here too.

Even if it means not being able to go hell for leather in pursuit of Monchi’s top targets, the power of continuity matters with the season and the end of the transfer window not very far away.

That doesn’t mean not signing anyone. It looks hopeful that another new acquisition is close and that’s fantastic news in a slow summer. But if Villa need to push a few options aside in the name of thoroughly shutting down key player sales, so be it.

Striker Ollie Watkins is right at the top of the list of players whose suitors Villa should be slamming the door on. I’d hope he was all along but you never know.

At this stage, with the paucity of potential replacements being the main reason Manchester United and others are briefing about him in the first place, it’s a no-go. Full stop. He’s irreplaceable. It doesn’t matter who’s pretending they want him to test the water.

Beware the August sales

All first team sales should be off the table now unless they are explicitly and emphatically on Villa’s terms and in Villa’s favour.

We assumed Emiliano Martínez was saying goodbye at Villa Park in May and it’s understood he’s keen on a new challenge at the end of his career. No sale.

No sale for Martínez because he hasn’t been replaced. No sale for Morgan Rogers because nobody has half a billion to spend on one player anyway. No sale for Jacob Ramsey or John McGinn or Pau Torres.

Shutting up shop early isn’t a perfect solution for Villa but losing starters in August doesn’t bear thinking about. The alternative leaves Villa with work to do on the wage bill and could have significant implications for the make-up of the Europa League squad, but this is where we are in football now.

It doesn’t feel profitable and sustainable, does it?

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