Ollie Watkins is the man of the moment.
After a superb season with Aston Villa, helping to fire them into the Champions League, the striker has just had the best moment of his career – scoring a superb strike in the 90th minute to secure a win for England in their Euros semi final against the Netherlands on Wednesday night.
He showed all his great qualities in that one moment – the clever run to latch on to Cole Palmer’s pass, the quick feet to turn, the power to hold off Stefan De Vrij and then then the pure technique to finish across goal from a tight angle.
It’s the kind of thing Chelsea would absolutely love to have from a striker, and it left us wondering why we never made a move for Watkins.
We heard over Christmas that the 28 year old had been targeted recently, before he signed a major new contract which ruled out any move in the near future.
But we also dug out this story from January 2020, when Watkins was still in the Championship with Brentford. Six months later, he made his Villa move for £28m, their record signing at the time.
A missed opportunity
There’s no point lamenting it now – there are plenty of other stories of great players we came close to signing over the years. But this is an interesting case because of how one imagines fans might have reacted.
As we wrote in the piece linked above, many people wouldn’t have been happy with an English 24 year old from the Championship. They’d be desperate for some exotic teenage import from Europe or South America. But sometimes the best option is the less glamorous one, right under your nose.
Let’s hope that next time a Watkins is on the market, we take the plunge.
Would he have gotten the playing time here then or been part of the loan army? Going to Villa was probably the smart move for him then.