Villa have lost out to Newcastle in the chase for Bournemouth’s Callum Wilson, with the striker opting to link up with Steve Bruce on Tyneside.
The 28 year old year was subject to a final £21 million bid from Villa, who had made an improved over and above The Magpies, who were reported to have offered a player plus cash deal on Friday.
Villa withdrew their offer and interest when it became clear Wilson preferred a move North.
This marks another frustrating blow to Dean Smith who must now be concerned about the lack of new recruits with the new season mere days away.
Embed from Getty ImagesWhilst the obstacles within the current transfer window aren’t just confined to B6, losing out to Newcastle for Wilson’s signature is also a very public defeat.
It evidences that despite having returned to the top flight after a three year absence and retaining our Premier League status on the final day, Villa have still have to do to demonstrate credibility to prospective players.
This also means that Purslow and Lange will need to double down on other targets with Ollie Watkins a priority. Villa’s increasing desperation to improve an impotent strike-force doesn’t help negotiations, with the Championship side holding out for an eye-watering £28 million fee.
If this cannot be achieved at all or before the season opener, Villa will need to cast the net even wider. There are a plethora of striking links, but possible moves for the likes of Liverpool’s Divock Origi cannot be discounted. Smith will face competition from Leeds for Origi, with the striker not having featured in pre-season due to injury.
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Go get Watkins and Benramha and Edouard from Celtic then get Romero and Axel from Utd to strengthen the keeper are CB areas.
Typical Villa under Smith, a day late and a dollar short. While Villa put all their attention to sign another right back, they fanny about trying to sign a striker, while Wilson prefers Newcastle and Spuds are in for Watkins. Surely the priority should be signing strikers to replace the three who scored 6 goals between them, rather than a right back. Tom
Smith saves pennies and we miss out again. Funny thing is, if we struggle this season, he will have no excuses. So you save a pound Dean,you may need it when your sacked.
Just get these deals done. At this level £21million to £23/£24 million makes no difference. Need prolific goal scorer. Don’t mess around for £1 million
Absolutely fine with this. Wilson is an experienced Premiership striker, but at those quoted figures at his age he sounds like a Darren Bent style signing to me – i.e. one who would likely maker an immediate impact, but whose contribution and value would deteriorate year on year. Preferring a move to Newcastle would settle the issue for me.
If we’re spending in excess of £20 million on a forward then I’d much rather it be a player still to reach his full potential like Watkins, Edouard or (and?) Benrahma. A player 4-6 years younger, whose value will increase with Premiership experience.
Completely agree with BBB. Wilson has had a few decent games but is not the answer for us. And any striker that opts to go and play in a team managed by Steve Bruce must be looking at early retirement!!
Edouard & Watkins are much more exciting propositions!
According to several comments on here its all Smith’s fault. Crap! The problem at Villa now is there are too many people sat round the decision table with Smith.
Three newcomers in Lange, Shakespear and a new Head of Scouting. If Smith had got his way last summer Berahano and Maupay would have been with us and we would not have been in the bottom three most of the year. Now clearly Smith again wants Berahano and Watkins, but the recruitment “Dream Team” are dragging their feet. It should be Smith’s call but clearly it isn’t and yet his heads on the chopping block. Could you have seen Clough, Shankly or Ferguson putting up with that? Of course not. The biggest mistake Villa have made is telling the World we have £100m to spend, every deal now has escalated by about £8m.
Agree with most of that Paul, Smith will have his targets and want to get them in ASAP. Not sure Shakespeare will have any influence beyond maybe helping to assess players as he’s a coach, not a decision maker. Lange… well, he’s been in the job all of a month, but he will be under pressure to make things happen.
The market is once again vastly inflated this summer, but when you see Wilson touted at £20+ million you have to shake your head. True value is going to be really hard to come by. I’m happy with Cash as a signing, we just need to get some similar quality and potential through the door up front.
This window reminds me a bit of Brian Little’s first in charge. We’d finished the previous season one place above the relegation zone and desperately needed to add youth and quality to our squad. We were linked with strikers like Bergkamp, Ferdinand, Armstrong etc but they all went elsewhere. We ended up taking a punt on an unknown called Savo Milosevic and finished top four, winning the League Cup. Obviously not saying that’ll happen, but it might be just as difficult to get our top targets in this season as it was then.
Wilson went 15 games without scoring last season do it is possible that he is past it. I wish people would stop being negative about Dean Smith just because he’s not foreign. To keep us up with no strikers scoring was an amazing achievement.
Please can we buy Watkins and behrama they will be brilliant together in our team. Then the rest of the budget buy what we need but we need to priotise and buy these two before anyone else gets them