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Unai Emery’s silence has taken on a fresh significance. The Aston Villa manager’s pre-match interview before Sunday’s game at Brighton stood out for a one-word reply. “Silence,” he said when asked where Ollie Watkins was. The England striker missed the 4-0 defeat, with Emery indicating that he had refused to play.

Watkins now seems bound for Al Hilal. The move would bring a major increase to his earnings, but it may also damage his standing. For a player widely seen as one of football’s good-news stories, this was surely not how it was meant to finish. When Watkins was 21 and playing for Exeter, the kind of money now on offer in Saudi Arabia would have felt beyond imagination. But then, so too would scoring England’s winner in the semi-final of a major tournament or lifting a European trophy. This is likely to be his final major contract, and almost certainly his biggest, but it again raises the question of how much money footballers actually need.

Ollie Watkins appears ready to bid farewell to Aston Villa.

Six years at Villa Park should hardly have left him short of money. Instead, he could depart with Villa reduced to using Emi Buendia as a false nine at Brighton as they made a false start to the new campaign.

A legacy being dulled would be unfortunate because Watkins and Villa have served each other extremely well. He had never played in the top flight before becoming their record signing. He then became the only player to reach double figures for Premier League goals in each of the past six seasons. His exit may yet drag on, but perhaps in one sense Watkins already signed off with a match-winning brace against Manchester City in his final game at Villa Park, just as his third appearance there had brought a brutal dismantling of Liverpool. He scored six times in his last five matches for Villa and, in the one game when he did not score, they won the Europa League.

Ollie Watkins was a central figure in Aston Villa’s rise.

Watkins wrote himself into Villa history, and he did so early, with his hat-trick in the 7-2 thrashing of Liverpool in 2020. He became the first Villa player since Peter McParland in 1962 to reach 100 goals for the club. That wait of more than 60 years feels even more remarkable considering the quality of those who played in between: Brian Little and Andy Gray, Peter Withe and Gary Shaw, David Platt and Dwight Yorke, Dion Dublin and Gabby Agbonlahor.

Even so, there have been signs that the relationship had become strained and was beginning to break down. Another occasion when Watkins looked unstoppable came alongside the revelation that he was angry: after tearing Newcastle apart in April 2025, he said he was “fuming” to have been limited to only a brief appearance in the Champions League quarter-final against Paris Saint-Germain, when Marcus Rashford had been chosen ahead of him. Yet by leaving now, he would be walking away from the opportunity he wanted at that time and from a part in only Villa’s second European Cup campaign since 1983.

England’s Ollie Watkins scored a memorable winner as England defeated the Netherlands at Euro 2024.

Arsenal were interested in Watkins in January 2025 and Manchester United followed the next summer, suggesting either that his performances continued to win admirers, or that he had an agent working actively on his behalf, or both.

Now, though, the timing of Watkins’ desire to move threatens to push Villa towards decline. Perhaps the past week has proved the decisive moment in a summer that always looked likely to bring change. Villa could lose six members of the starting XI from the Europa League final.

Look at those cases individually and each one differs. For a club that has breached financial regulations, Morgan Rogers was always the most obvious player to attract a major fee, and Villa secured an enormous one at £117m. Youri Tielemans had a release clause, yet still generated a £35m profit. Lucas Digne had long seemed likely to leave and finally did. Villa had grown tired of Emi Martinez and brought in his replacement, Zion Suzuki, before the goalkeeper had even departed.

Unai Emery’s Aston Villa squad has been ripped apart this summer.

But Villa surely cannot have expected two others to head for the exit. Ezri Konsa has brought in a strong fee at £51m for a defender who is almost 29. Like Watkins, however, he was one of the dependable figures: a player who came up from the lower leagues and became part of the core group Emery inherited, a set of players signed by Steve Bruce, Dean Smith or Steven Gerrard who remained the constants amid all the frantic transfer business.

If the departures continue, John McGinn and Tyrone Mings may feel increasingly isolated as the last remaining members of that group. The presence and purpose of those senior professionals appeared to be one of the foundations of Emery’s time at Villa, helping the side come through more difficult periods. Now that collective identity may disappear.

And while Villa may, in truth, have needed to get younger, they are suddenly losing the reliability that experience brought. In Watkins’ case, that meant a dependable supply of goals, with at least 16 in each of the last three Premier League seasons. Brian Madjo’s outstanding display in the Super Cup against Paris Saint-Germain offered encouragement for life after him, but Tammy Abraham’s ineffective 2026 is a reminder that Emery’s recruitment at Villa has been very mixed.

The rise of Brian Madjo now feels crucial for Aston Villa if Ollie Watkins leaves.

That alone is one reason for concern if Watkins is indeed going. But even before that, the greater issue is the manner in which he now appears to be leaving.