![\"Ollie](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/0_Ollie-Watkins.jpg\")
Ollie Watkins(Image: Matt McNulty\/Getty Images)<\/p>\nLatest Manchester United transfer news as Ollie Watkins returns to Aston Villa after reported interest from Old TraffordOllie Watkins(Image: Matt McNulty\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Rumoured Manchester United transfer target Ollie Watkins has returned to Aston Villa for pre-season training on Monday amid ongoing speculation over his future.<\/p>\n
In addition to their push to sign top target Bryan Mbeumo this summer<\/a>, the Manchester Evening News understands United are prioritising the signing of a striker<\/a>. The club had sounded out Liam Delap before he signed for Chelsea<\/a> and no publicised movements have been made towards recruiting an alternative since.<\/p>\n Watkins, along with numerous other names<\/a>, is reported to be a target as Ruben Amorim aims to add more firepower to his attacking line this summer.<\/p>\n Villa’s star striker scored 17 and assisted 14 in all competitions last term, making the kind of impact a club who finished with minus one goal difference in the Premier League<\/a> would desire strongly. As has been the case this summer, the 29-year-old has been linked with a move away from the West Midlands in previous transfer windows.<\/p>\n But Watkins remained a Villa player as things stand and has now returned to prepare for the 2025\/26 campaign. After many of his teammates returned to training last week, the England international was spotted at the Bodymoor Heath training ground on Monday.<\/p>\n The Premier League club published a collection of photographs to Instagram of players arriving at training. Watkins headed up the list that included another United-linked player Emiliano Martinez<\/a>, John McGinn, Morgan Rogers, Ezri Konsa and Youri Tielemans.<\/p>\n Content cannot be displayed without consent<\/p>\n Villa’s pre-season schedule is coming thick and fast with friendlies on Wednesday and Saturday this week. Meanwhile, Amorim’s team fly to Stockholm to meet Leeds United this weekend, then continue their travels for a pre-season tour in the United States.<\/p>\n With the current focus on getting a deal for Mbeumo over the line, the search for a No.9 is set to go deeper into the summer.<\/p>\n Here at The Manchester Evening News, we are dedicated to bringing you the best Manchester United<\/a> coverage and analysis.<\/p>\n Make sure you don’t miss out on the latest United news by joining our free WhatsApp group. You can get all the breaking news and best analysis sent straight to your phone by clicking here<\/strong><\/a> to subscribe.<\/p>\n You can also subscribe to our free newsletter service. Click here<\/strong><\/a> to be sent all the day’s biggest stories.<\/p>\n And, finally, if you would rather listen to our expert analysis then make sure to check out our Manchester is Red podcast, featuring The Samuel Luckhurst Show and The Midweek Debate. Our shows are available on all podcast platforms, including Spotify<\/strong><\/a> and Apple Podcasts<\/strong><\/a>, and you can also watch along on YouTube<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Our team of Manchester United experts are on top of all the goings-on at Old Trafford for this week and beyond, and you can get the latest team news, injury updates, reaction and analysis along with inside information to your phone by joining our new free WhatsApp community<\/a>. You can also join the 50,000 (and growing!) band of United fans who are following our WhatsApp Channel.<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to our community here<\/a>, and join our WhatsApp channel here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n —<\/p>\n We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don\u2019t like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you\u2019re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Latest Manchester United transfer news as Ollie Watkins returns to Aston Villa after reported interest from Old TraffordOllie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[422,423,9060,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-265825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-aston-villa-fc","9":"tag-manchester-united-fc","10":"tag-manchester-united-transfer-news","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/0_GettyImages-2187128692.jpg\")
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