Journalists Luke Hatfield and Matt Maher have cast doubt over the idea of James Ward-Prowse making a move to Aston Villa this summer.
Dean Smith has certainly been busy over the course of the summer transfer window, bringing in a number of players for pretty hefty sums, whilst also managing to be involved in a British record transfer fee with the sale of Jack Grealish to Manchester City.
And according to reports, they aren’t stopping there, with The Telegraph claiming that they could be going back to Southampton to make a move for England international Ward-Prowse, having already snagged Danny Ings from them.
But speaking on the E&S Villa Podcast, Hatfield and Maher both felt that for a number of reasons – one of them being the arrival of Ings – a move for Ward-Prowse didn’t seem feasible this summer.
Hatfield said: “For me, it seems unlikely now that they’d get him and Ings. It always strikes me as odd when a club sells two players to a single club.”
Maher agreed: “You would think that [signing] Ings has probably killed any hope of getting Ward-Prowse, which I think would have been a difficult deal to do, anyway.
“There’s question marks over [Jannik] Vestergaard’s future. If he goes, then you do wonder about them. And if he goes, they surely can’t sell Ward-Prowse, because they’ve effectively sold the spine of their team.”
TIF Thoughts on Luke Hatfield and Matt Maher’s comments about James Ward-Prowse and Aston Villa…
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You would certainly hope that those problems aren’t too big an obstacle when it comes to Villa signing Ward-Prowse, because having lost Grealish and his attacking prowess in terms of goals and assists, they need to be finding as many avenues as possible to replace him.
And that is exactly what Ward-Prowse could bring to the side, with nine goals and eight assists in all competitions last season and his expert ability when it comes to free-kicks – something that Grealish didn’t really have in his arsenal.
So whilst it might be difficult for them, hopefully they aren’t totally put off the idea of signing him, because he really could add an extra dimension to this Villa side.
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