New details from Fenerbahçe president Aziz Yıldırım have shed further light on Ollie Watkins’ Aston Villa exit, with the Turkish club claiming Villa repeatedly refused to sell the striker during a pursuit lasting up to six weeks before his late move to Al-Hilal.
New details have emerged about the circumstances surrounding Ollie Watkins’ departure from Aston Villa, with Fenerbahçe president Aziz Yıldırım claiming the Turkish club spent as long as six weeks trying to sign the striker only to be repeatedly told that Villa had no intention of selling him.
Watkins eventually left Villa for Al-Hilal at the very end of the summer transfer window, bringing his six-year spell at Villa Park to an end, but Yıldırım’s account of Fenerbahçe’s pursuit gives an interesting insight into just how different the situation appears to have been earlier in the window.
Speaking at Fenerbahçe’s ordinary general meeting on Sunday, September 27, in comments reported in Turkey by Fotomaç, Yıldırım revealed that club officials Cihan Kamer, Hasan Çetinkaya and Oğuz Çetin travelled to England to hold discussions over a possible deal. According to Yıldırım, those conversations went beyond simply speaking to Villa, with Watkins himself and his representative also involved.
Yıldırım said: “The player says, ‘I won’t come to Turkey’, and the club says, ‘We won’t sell him’. We’ll give you whatever you want, but they say the answer is ‘no’. We spent 1-1.5 months trying. In the end, it didn’t work out.”
The comments are particularly interesting when placed against what eventually happened because, if Yıldırım’s version of events is accurate, there was resistance from both sides of the equation. Watkins did not want to move to Turkey, while Villa were seemingly equally determined that their striker would not be leaving at all.
Fenerbahçe’s interest in Watkins was reported during the summer, so the pursuit itself is not new information, but the level of detail Yıldırım has now provided certainly is. It suggests this was a sustained attempt to sign Watkins rather than a speculative enquiry, with senior Fenerbahçe figures travelling to England and continuing to work on a deal for more than a month despite Villa’s stance.
What makes it more noteworthy from a Villa perspective is how quickly circumstances subsequently changed. Watkins eventually joined Al-Hilal right at the end of August, with Yıldırım claiming the deal was worth €60million and came with a significant salary for the striker.
There was clearly a point during the summer when Villa were determined to keep Watkins and understandably so after another hugely productive season, but the final stages of the window ultimately produced a very different outcome. His departure was not necessarily something that had been planned throughout the summer, and these comments would appear to reinforce the sense that it became a realistic possibility considerably later in proceedings.
Watkins’ exit itself was also far from straightforward. He had been such an important part of Unai Emery’s Villa and had scored 21 goals during the previous campaign, but by the end of August the club were prepared to sanction his departure as part of a significant reshaping of the attacking options available to Emery.
Yıldırım’s account does not explain exactly what changed Villa’s position, and it would be wrong to assume the circumstances surrounding the Fenerbahçe approach were identical to those that eventually led to the Al-Hilal deal. What it does provide, though, is another piece of the timeline surrounding one of Villa’s biggest summer decisions.
For a considerable period, the answer to Watkins leaving Villa appears to have been a very firm no. By the final days of the window, that was no longer the case.
Credit: Aziz Yıldırım’s comments were made at Fenerbahçe’s ordinary general meeting on September 27 and reported by Turkish outlet Fotomaç.
