The surprise £35m deal that Aston Villa want to strike for a Sunderland star
Aston Villa have been linked with a shock move for a Sunderland star - but will it happen, and would it even make sense for them?
For much of the summer, the gossip columns were filled with rumours suggesting that several sides wanted to sign Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins. Based on the way that he’s started the season, they may now wish that they’d let him go.
The blame for Watkins’ form doesn’t lie solely at his own feet, of course, with poor service from his struggling team-mates a pretty significant contributing factor – still, Villa must at least be wishing that they’d followed through on their desire to sign another striker this summer, with goals proving hugely difficult to come by so far. Five games into the Premier League season, and Villa have scored just once.
It's certainly no surprise to see fresh rumours cropping up which suggest that Villa are interested in signing a striker from a top-flight rival – but are links with Sunderland’s Wilson Isidor realistic, and would the Frenchman be the solution to Villa’s problems?
Just how good is Sunderland’s Wilson Isidor?
Isidor has certainly taken to life in the Premier League. He already has three top-flight goals in just 236 minutes of football, including both a late winner against Brentford and, of course, an equaliser against Villa in a recent 1-1 draw.
That goal may have encouraged Villa to consider signing Isidor. According to a new report from Football Insider, Unai Emery’s side are “monitoring” Isidor ahead of the January transfer window.
Isidor, who is at his best as a traditional number nine who looks to peel away from defenders late in the box to open up scoring opportunities – not entirely unlike Watkins, in many ways – has now scored three goals from an xG of just 1.0, but that may be an unsustainable conversion rate based on his track record over recent years.
Having scored 16 goals in just 23 league starts from Lokomotiv Moscow, Isidor struggled at Zenit St. Petersburg before moving to Sunderland on an initial loan deal last summer. In the second tier, the 25-year-old managed 12 goals in 43 league games, scoring them from a total of 15.4xG.
The suggestion from Isidor’s time in the Championship was that he was a striker whose strength was in consistently getting into shooting positions and scoring by weight of volume, rather than because his finishing was especially precise. Those 12 Championship goals came from 93 shots, and he’s already had 13 attempts on goal in the Premier League despite only starting two matches.
While Isidor’s form has seen him get the starting spot recently, Régis Le Bris came into the season preferring young Spaniard Eliezer Mayenda up front, and that may largely be because history suggests that Isidor is not a first-rate finisher. By way of comparison with Watkins, the England striker’s 19 league goals last season came from 82 shots and 15.3xG, a far better conversion rate.
In short, either Isidor has taken a considerable step forward over the summer or he is enjoying a purple patch that may exaggerate his quality to a certain degree. If Villa are lining him up as competition for Watkins, or even as a replacement, they may be disappointed. They are similar strikers in many ways, but Watkins is faster and, based on the stats and eye test over recent years, better, even if current form suggests otherwise.
Will Aston Villa sign Isidor – or sell Ollie Watkins?
So far, Football Insider appear to be the only outlet carrying this story so far, which in our opinion doesn’t lend it an enormous amount of credibility, but it’s possible that other websites or newspapers will corroborate it in the future.
It’s certainly plausible that Villa will look to sign a new striker in January. The chances that they lose Watkins in January are relatively low, given that the teams supposedly interested in him have all signed alternatives, but the need for depth is plain as well. It isn’t just the poor form of Watkins and Morgan Rogers that is hampering Villa’s attack, but also the loss of Marcus Rashford and Marco Asensio. There is a lack of both inspiration and depth up front and it’s probable that they try to address that in some way if the current situation persists.
Villa are somewhat constrained in how much they can spend, having only narrowly avoided a breach of the Premier League’s PSR rules last season after selling their own women’s team to their owners’ holding company. They have a lot of past spending weighing down the balance sheet and need to be somewhat cautious with how they approach the January transfer window. That may make the signing of a player like Isidor relatively tricky.
Football Insider claim that Sunderland would demand a fee in the region of £35m for a player who cost them just £5m when he signed permanently from Zenit at the end of the last winter transfer window. It’s not necessarily an unusual price tag for an on-song Premier League striker, but it’s enough to make a deal difficult to strike.
It’s not impossible, however, and if Isidor does bely past form and prove that he has found a way to improve his game and hit new heights between now and the new year, then £35m may start to sound like a bargain, and Villa’s financial position after the sale of their women’s team is not believed to be so precarious as to preclude mid-priced deals.
As it stands, there isn’t enough evidence out there to suggest that this deal is necessarily likely to happen – but if Football Insider have their facts straight, then it would certainly be an interesting move. Isidor has been superb so far, but it remains to be seen as to whether he can sustain it and provide Villa with the extra firepower they have lacked so desperately.