Ollie Watkins leaves Aston Villa for Saudi Arabia's Al-Hilal after six years

Six years is a long time: long enough for a quiet rise from Brentford academy product to Premier League mainstay, long enough for a Euros run with England, and long enough to score more than a hundred goals in an Aston Villa shirt. And, in the end, long enough to build toward a farewell. Ollie Watkins has closed the book on his time in Birmingham with a transfer to Al-Hilal of Saudi Arabia, one of the most eye-catching moves of this window for the English club.

The forward, 30 years old, arrived at Villa Park in 2020 from Brentford and never stopped developing from there. Season after season he reached double figures in goals, something not every number nine in the Premier League manages to sustain for so long. That consistency made him a fixture of Villa's attack and, in time, a regular for the England national team as well.

Watkins chose to say goodbye in his own way, with a message on Instagram that sums up pretty well what these years meant to him:

Six incredible years have come to an end. Thank you for the wonderful memories and for always supporting me, through the good times and the bad. Saying goodbye is never easy with this club, because it has been a huge part of my life on and off the pitch.Ollie Watkins

A summer of significant departures

Watkins's exit is not an isolated case. So far in this transfer window, Aston Villa had already let go of names that carried weight in the dressing room: Morgan Rogers, Youri Tielemans and Ezri Konsa also packed their bags. On top of that comes the departure of Emiliano Martinez, confirmed as a new Chelsea player that same Sunday.

Is it a coincidence that so many key pieces are leaving in the same summer? Hard to believe. For Villa fans, used in recent years to watching their team fight for a place in Europe, the feeling is of a club starting to rebuild from the ground up, with several major departures and an open question over how those gaps will be filled.

For Watkins, meanwhile, a different chapter opens in Saudi football, joining an Al-Hilal side that in recent years has become a regular destination for players established in Europe. He leaves Villa Park having spent six seasons as one of the most reliable forwards in the Premier League, and with a farewell that, in his own words, was anything but easy.