Aston Villa have confirmed the arrival of Brentford striker Ollie Watkins in a club-record deal worth an initial £28m.
Watkins has put pen to paper on a five-year deal running until the summer of 2025 with Villa and secures a reunion with his former Brentford boss Dean Smith.
Villa have accelerated their transfer plans after missing out on Bournemouth striker Callum Wilson to Newcastle at the start of the week to land Watkins for a record fee.
Smith's side were hoping to land Watkins for closer to £18m but have now eclipsed the £22m they paid for Wesley last summer to sign the 24-year-old.
Through performance related add-ons, Villa could end up paying as much as £33m for Watkins, with his former club Exeter entitled to a 15% sell-on fee from Brentford.
🥵 Ollie Watkins started every single game of the 2019/20 Championship season, including the play-offs, amassing 4430 minutes of playing time!
👏 After an extremely long campaign, heralding 26 goals, the Brentford striker has been named as the @SkyBetChamp Player of the Season pic.twitter.com/pU0cvTazjf
— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) August 27, 2020
"I am so excited to join Aston Villa and to reunite with Dean Smith as my head coach," he told the club's official website.
"I cannot wait to wear the famous claret and blue in the Premier League. I want to do something special here and score some goals.”
Signing a new striker has been a priority for Villa all summer after their woes up front last season and they are also in talks to sign Josh King from Bournemouth for £16m.
Watkins remarkably started every single game of the 2019/20 Championship season for Brentford, including the play-offs, amassing 4430 minutes of playing time.
The forward netted 26 goals in that time and was named the Sky Bet Championship player of the season.
