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Arsenal Make Interestingly Timed Move For Villa’s Watkins

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It is now only a matter of 96 odd hours until the January transfer window comes to a close with the usual Deadline Day drama’s, and Arsenal remain heavily in the mix for a couple of late deals if fans believe the latest speculation doing the rounds on the rumour mill, and one of them could come from the West Midlands.

As we all know, manager Mikel Arteta has already publicly confirmed that we have a strong interest in signing a new striker this window to help us with the Arsenal fixtures that lie ahead, and we have already been linked with a plethora of potential top options in the last few weeks – whether that be Newcastle United attacker Aleksander Isak, or Sporting CP talent Viktor Gyokeres, to name just two.

For a few seasons now though we have also been consistently linked with 29 year old Aston Villa attacker Ollie Watkins.

The 18 capped England international is one of Unai Emery’s first names on their team sheet, and he has a solid goalscoring record for them having joined from Brentford in a reported £28 million deal back in 2020. 184 starts across all competitions have seen a return of 80 goals, and he now also boasts Europa Conference League and Champions League experience and it has been previously claimed that he was a Gunner in his boyhood days.

Given Watkins has long been linked with us it is not a great surprise to see him named in the dying deaths of the New Year window, but the speculation stepped up a gear on Wednesday evening as it was being claimed that we had put in a firm transfer offer for his services, and that we had done it only a few mere hours ahead of their kick off with Celtic in the Champions League.

Apparently this offer was immediately rebuffed by the Villans, but with ten goals in 23 games in 2024/25, it is believed that we fully intend to go back with an improved offer in the next day or two. The deal is unlikely to happen for a number of reasons, so fans should not get too excited right now, although given the timing of the offer, if true, it certainly marks a hard ball change in our approach this month which has appeared to be ‘patiently does it’.

Not only is Watkins not for sale given their available options, they also have him locked under contract for the next three seasons, so with claims that our opening offer was in the region of £60 million, it was never going to fly really as a proposal.

Certainly not on the same day when it was being reported that Villa were also mulling a potential £77 million offer from Saudi Arabian Pro League side Al-Nassr for talented, but temperamental youngster, Jhon Duran.

Watkins would certainly offer our front line a lot given his running, tenacity and eye for goal but some fans would question the price tag given he can go long spells without finding a rich vein of form, and simply put, unless the player himself has his head turned here and pushes for a move, for the fee we are looking to pay, we missed the boat a season or two ago, as what they would demand right now, probably does not make financial sense from our side of the deal.

Image Source: unsplash.com

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