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Transfers
What Arsenal were initially told about Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins before bidding for him
Arsenal made a move for Ollie Watkins this week, and that offer was duly rejected.
Aston Villa weren’t happy with Arsenal’s bid for Watkins, and for good reason.
Indeed, it has since been reported that Arsenal’s initial bid for Watkins was actually around £40m, rather than the £60m that was initially reported.
Some wires appear to have been crossed here, and speaking on The Game Football Podcast, Gary Jacob has explained why that may have happened.
According to the journalist, Arsenal were actually offered the chance to sign Watkins at that £60m mark, but, instead, they tried to low-ball Aston Villa by offering just £40m, which has, in turn, left Villa angry with the negotiations.
Arsenal were offered Ollie Watkins for £60m
Jacob shared what he knows about the situation between Ollie Watkins and Arsenal.
This story has been in the headlines all week, and according to Jacob, Arsenal were initially offered the chance to sign Watkins for around £60m, but they tried to do a discounted deal.
“As we understand it live Thursday afternoon, Arsenal actually offered him the chance to sign him for around about 60 million. They sort of said, well, would you accept 40 and Villa said no. Now, Arsenal are thinking about whether to go to increase it.
“Now, if you’re Villa and you got PSR problems, they’re looking at they’ve got Juran and Watkins, perhaps the two assets. My reading between the lines would be that both the carrots have been dangled. And now they’re looking at it and think, well, have we got an offer for Juran?
“He’s got quite a sizeable offer from Saudi. And that may be enough for their PSR. What’s not clear is that whether they would sell what they need or be willing to sell, Ollie on top of that.
“I mean, he’s 29, obviously. If a 50, 60 million pound bid came in, you would expect that they would kind of certainly look at that, because that’s good profit for them. But equally, to do it mid-season would be obviously a little bit risky, even if they’re in the Champions League, they want to re-qualify for the Champions League.”
Arsenal’s transfer strategy analysed
Arsenal low-balled Villa in their first bid for Ollie Watkins, and that does seem to be a running trend of how Arsenal do their business.
Indeed, Arsenal’s opening offers often fall below the valuation of their key targets.
Arsenal made multiple bids for Ben White before signing him from Brighton, while Arsenal made umpteen offers for Declan Rice before getting that deal done, so much so that West Ham got annoyed with Arsenal’s strategy at one point.
Meanwhile, Arsenal have previously famously made a £40m+1 bid for Luis Suarez from Liverpool.
Arsenal are willing to push the boat out when they need to, and who knows? Perhaps they will revisit the Watkins deal and make a more acceptable second offer.
However, it does seem as though Arsenal’s opening bids for key targets often fall some way short of the selling club’s valuation.
Sometimes, that’s a clever bargaining tactic, other times, you just risk angering the team you’re trying to negotiate with.