Ollie Watkins Completes £51m Al-Hilal Move With Emotional Farewell to Aston Villa

Ollie Watkins has completed his move to Saudi Pro League side Al-Hilal from Aston Villa in a deal worth £51.7m, ending a six-year spell in which he became the club’s record Premier League goalscorer. The 30-year-old has signed a three-year contract and posted a lengthy farewell message to Villa supporters within minutes of the move being confirmed.

“Firstly, I would like to say, never did I intend, nor did I imagine, my time at Aston Villa would end this way,” Watkins wrote. “With that being said, I am eternally grateful for the last six years. Not only has it shaped me as a player, but as a person. We’ve been through so many ups and downs in my six seasons here, but one thing that has never changed is that I have given everything for this club.”

A Difficult Ending

Watkins made himself unavailable for Villa’s Premier League opener against Brighton last weekend, an absence that manager Unai Emery said the striker later apologised for. It was an unusual way for one of the club’s most reliable performers of the past six years to bow out, and it reflected how far talks over a Saudi move had progressed by the time the season began.

Emery, according to reporting around the move, had “small tears” as he said goodbye to a player he described as “fantastic.” Watkins becomes the latest in a string of senior Villa departures this summer that has also included Morgan Rogers, Ezri Konsa, Youri Tielemans and Lucas Digne, a level of turnover that marks a clear shift in direction for a squad Emery has spent six years rebuilding.

Ninety-One Goals and a Night in Istanbul

Watkins arrived at Villa Park in 2020 and leaves as the club’s all-time record scorer in the Premier League era, with 91 league goals to his name. His statement traced the arc of that spell in detail. “From my first goals in the 7-2 win over Liverpool to getting the club back into Europe, the Champions League nights at Villa Park to that unforgettable night in Istanbul and becoming Villa’s record Premier League goalscorer,” he wrote. “It is an achievement that I never thought would be possible when I signed for the club.”

The reference to Istanbul points to Villa’s Europa League final win over Freiburg, in which Watkins started, a trophy that gave the club its first European silverware in 44 years. Along the way, Villa established themselves as regular top-six challengers under Emery, a transformation Watkins was central to both on the pitch and, by his own account, as a squad figurehead.

He thanked each of the three managers he played under at the club by name. “I want to thank everyone who has contributed to my time here, Dean Smith, Steven Gerrard and especially Unai Emery for always believing in me,” he wrote, a nod to the fact his rise from Championship signing to England international unfolded across three different regimes at Villa Park.

From Squad Player to Record Scorer

Watkins was not an instant success at Villa Park. His first Premier League season, played in front of empty stadiums amid the pandemic, saw him establish himself gradually rather than announce himself immediately, and it took time under three different head coaches for his goal return to match his all-round contribution to the team. What never wavered, according to his own account, was his effort levels, a quality he referenced directly in his farewell statement when he wrote of having given everything for the club across all six of his seasons there.

By the time Emery arrived in October 2022, Watkins already had two full Premier League seasons behind him. What followed was the most productive stretch of his career, coinciding with Villa’s rise from a mid-table side to one capable of competing in Europe and winning a trophy for the first time in over four decades. His tally of 91 Premier League goals for the club is not just a Villa record, it places him among the most reliable Premier League forwards of his generation across the entirety of his time in the competition.

Family Ties to the Club

Watkins’s statement leaned as heavily on personal milestones as football ones. “My two children were born here, and to see them walk on to the pitch and see you fans sing my name in front of them and my family is something that will always stay with me forever,” he wrote. He closed with a message that made clear the move to Saudi Arabia was a career decision rather than any falling out with the city that shaped his time in the Midlands. “Birmingham will always be home, and so will Villa.”

Three Managers, One Constant

Watkins signed for Villa from Brentford in September 2020 under Dean Smith, part of a squad still adjusting to life back in the Premier League after promotion. Steven Gerrard succeeded Smith in November 2021, and it was under Emery, appointed in October 2022, that Watkins’s career at Villa Park reached its peak. Across those three regimes, Watkins was rarely dropped and rarely injured for long, a level of consistency that goes a long way to explaining how a player signed for a reported fee in the region of £28m from the Championship became the club’s outright record Premier League scorer.

His England career developed alongside his Villa form. A regular fixture in Gareth Southgate’s squads and, more recently, under his successors, Watkins became a dependable source of Premier League goals at a time when the national team’s depth at centre forward was frequently discussed as a concern. Al-Hilal will now benefit from a player entering his Saudi move at the peak of his career, unlike some of the more faded veteran signings the Saudi Pro League has attracted in previous transfer windows.

Joining Fellow Premier League Exports

At Al-Hilal, Watkins joins Dutch winger Crysencio Summerville, who moved to the Saudi club after West Ham’s relegation from the Premier League. The £51.7m fee represents another significant outlay from a Saudi Pro League club still working to attract established Premier League talent in the peak years of their careers rather than as a retirement move, with Watkins turning 30 earlier this year and, on the evidence of his farewell message, leaving Villa Park with his reputation as one of the division’s most consistent forwards of the past half-decade intact.

For Villa, the sale brings in significant funds in a summer that has already seen the club sell several key contributors. Whoever replaces Watkins as Emery’s central striker will do so at a club still adjusting to life without the goalscoring platform he provided for six seasons, from his first campaign helping Villa retain their Premier League status to the European nights that followed.

The Numbers Behind the Farewell

Villa signed Watkins from Brentford for a club-record £28m in September 2020, a fee that looked significant at the time for a player who had scored 26 goals in all competitions the previous season but had no top-flight experience. Six years and 91 Premier League goals later, that fee looks like one of the shrewder pieces of business in the club’s recent history, and the £51.7m Al-Hilal have paid to take him to Saudi Arabia represents a substantial return on the original investment.

What the fee cannot capture is the timing of his departure, arriving in the same close season as Rogers, Konsa, Tielemans and Digne, and only days after Villa’s Premier League campaign had already begun with the opening-weekend tie against Brighton, the match Watkins made himself unavailable for. Emery now has to manage the rest of the season without the forward who has, for six years, been the most consistent source of goals in his side. How quickly Villa can reinvest the funds from Watkins’s sale, and who eventually leads the line in his absence, will shape how this transfer is remembered by the club’s supporters in years to come.

Villa’s supporters will have their own view on the timing. A record scorer who helped establish the club among the Premier League’s top-six regulars, and who started the final that won Villa a European trophy, leaving in the same window the team is trying to build on that success is the kind of departure that tends to be remembered fondly rather than bitterly, provided the funds raised are reinvested well. Watkins’s own statement suggests he is hoping for exactly that outcome, closing not with any grievance but with gratitude for a spell he described as shaping him “as a player, but as a person.” It is an ending built on gratitude rather than acrimony, unusual for a transfer window that so often turns even the most successful spells sour by the time a player finally leaves. His statement gives Villa’s supporters a clear, warm note to remember him by rather than the awkward absence that preceded it, a fitting close to six years defined far more by consistency than controversy, and by goals that arrived, season after season, without fanfare.