{"id":2701,"date":"2026-08-30T19:04:53","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T19:04:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/footballars.xyz\/?p=2701"},"modified":"2026-08-30T19:04:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T19:04:53","slug":"aston-villa-transfer-news-ollie-watkins-joins-al-hilal-as-deal-agreed-for-taylor-harwood-bellis-football-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/?p=2701","title":{"rendered":"Aston Villa transfer news: Ollie Watkins joins Al Hilal as deal agreed for Taylor Harwood-Bellis | Football News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Ollie Watkins has completed his \u00a350m move from Aston Villa to Al Hilal.<\/p>\n

The move to Saudi Arabia brings an end to his six-year stay at Villa Park. He scored 108 goals in 278 games for Villa across all competitions.<\/p>\n

Watkins’ final game for the club was May’s 3-0 victory over Freiburg in the Europa League final, helping to end their 44-year wait for a European trophy.<\/p>\n

The striker wrote on Instagram: “Six amazing years has come to an end. Thank you for the amazing memories and always supporting me through highs and lows.<\/p>\n

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“Saying goodbye is never easy to this club as it’s been a massive part of my life on and off the pitch.<\/p>\n

“Once a villain, always a villain.”<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Unai Emery revealed Watkins had apologised to his team-mates for not playing in their 4-0 defeat at Brighton on the opening weekend of the season.<\/p>\n

Emery had responded to questions about Watkins’ absence before that game by saying: “Ask him. I only can answer it by silence.”<\/p>\n

On Friday, he said: “Watkins said sorry after Brighton. He made a mistake. He always had good behaviour in the club and with me. He’s a fantastic guy.<\/p>\n

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Unai Emery admitted Aston Villa are about to begin a ‘new chapter’ after the departure of Watkins and the arrival of Nicolas Jackson<\/span>
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“I told him ‘bye’, with a huge hug and a small cry.”<\/p>\n

Villa have already replaced Watkins with Nicolas Jackson, who signed this week for a club-record fee that could rise to \u00a365m.<\/p>\n

Villa agree Harwood-Bellis deal<\/h3>\n
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\n Aston Villa have agreed a deal to sign Taylor Harwood-Bellis
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Exclusive from Sky Sports News’ Lyall Thomas<\/strong>:<\/em><\/p>\n

Aston Villa <\/strong>have agreed in principle a \u00a330m package with Southampton <\/strong>to sign centre-back Taylor Harwood-Bellis.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The deal is broken up into a \u00a325m guaranteed fee plus \u00a35m in add-ons and the final details are being sorted between the clubs.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old has made 134 appearances for Saints since joining from Manchester City, and has one goal in one appearance for England, receiving his only cap in 2024.<\/p>\n

Harwood-Bellis will help to fill the hole left by Ezri Konsa, who moved to Arsenal earlier this summer.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Ollie Watkins has completed his \u00a350m move from Aston Villa to Al Hilal. The move…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}