{"id":301108,"date":"2025-07-29T11:48:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T11:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/301108\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T11:48:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T11:48:13","slug":"transfer-news-thomas-frank-on-son-heung-mins-future-and-tottenham-transfer-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/301108\/","title":{"rendered":"Transfer news: Thomas Frank on Son Heung-min&#8217;s future and Tottenham transfer plans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What could Watkins offer United?published at 11:47 British Summer Time<\/p>\n<p>11:47 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-8kvzjk-Contributor etflsgg2\"><strong>Tom McCoy<\/strong><br \/>BBC Sport journalist<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Manchester United transfer target Ollie Watkins has provided<br \/>\nconsistent goal threat for Aston Villa since joining from Brentford in 2020, more<br \/>\nthan justifying his transfer fee of \u00a328m, rising to \u00a333m with add-ons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Torquay-born striker has reached double figures in all<br \/>\nfive of his seasons with Villa and equalled a club record by netting 19 Premier<br \/>\nLeague goals in 2023-24. He has also been available for the vast majority of<br \/>\ngames, featuring in 184 of 190 top-flight matches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">His principal strengths are pace and movement, traits which<br \/>\nhave enabled him to register 211 shots on target in the past five Premier<br \/>\nLeague seasons, second only to Mohamed Salah. But while he is a constant source<br \/>\nof danger, his finishing statistics have fluctuated over the years. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Watkins enjoyed a real hot streak when scoring 27 times in<br \/>\nall competitions in 2023-24, overperforming his expected goals total by 6.2 and<br \/>\nnetting with 20% of his attempts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Those figures regressed last season, with the England<br \/>\ninternational underperforming his expected goals total by four and converting<br \/>\n15.3% of his chances. It perhaps didn\u2019t help that during the first half of the<br \/>\ncampaign he was often replaced by Jhon Duran in the closing stages of games,<br \/>\nallowing the Colombian \u2013 rather than Watkins \u2013 to capitalise when space opened<br \/>\nup as opposition defences tired.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Nonetheless, in the Premier League, Watkins missed a league-high<br \/>\n27 \u2018big chances\u2019 (as defined by Opta), scoring only a third of such opportunities.<br \/>\nThat compares to a success rate of approximately 50% for peers such as Salah, Erling<br \/>\nHaaland, Alexander Isak and Yoane Wissa.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But while there may be room for improvement in Watkins\u2019<br \/>\nfinishing, he has added another string to his bow by becoming a regular creator<br \/>\nof goals, assisting a remarkable 27 goals over the past two campaigns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Aged 29, Watkins may not necessarily offer a long-term<br \/>\noption for United but he would be a clear upgrade on their current options \u2013 if<br \/>\nVilla can be persuaded to sell.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Ollie Watkins' Aston Villa record in all competitions\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/6806f607-108b-4bb5-b3f7-1616e547303a.png.webp.webp\"  width=\"773\" height=\"378\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, BBC Sport<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What could Watkins offer United?published at 11:47 British Summer Time 11:47 BST Tom McCoyBBC Sport journalist Manchester United&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[94,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-301108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114936368911201049","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301108","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=301108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}