Taylor Harwood-Bellis Aston Villa Transfer
Aston Villa have agreed a £30m package in principle to sign Taylor Harwood-Bellis from Southampton. Sky Sports News reports it will be structured as an initial £25m guaranteed fee, with a further £5m in add-ons. The two clubs are thought to be in the final stages of completing the deal.
Southampton have stood firm on their £30m valuation in the face of earlier bids. Benfica tried first, with a £17.1m bid in mid-August that Southampton dismissed outright, without entering negotiations. Villa fared little better with their opening attempts: an £18m offer plus add-ons was turned down, followed by an improved bid that still fell short of Southampton’s valuation.
In the end, it was put up or shut up, and the Saints got their valuation, just dressed as a package rather than a straight fee.
The signs that the player was leaving the south coast were there before the fee ever settled. Harwood-Bellis has been left out of Southampton’s last three league games, and a club planning to keep a player doesn’t sit him out for three straight fixtures over a deal that hasn’t been agreed. Southampton had made peace with losing him, and were simply making sure they got the price they wanted.
Other Contenders to Replace Konsa
Harwood-Bellis is Villa’s answer to Ezri Konsa’s £51m move to Arsenal, from a list of centre-backs that included Joel Ordóñez of Club Brugge (who has a fractured metatarsal from the World Cup), AC Milan’s Fikayo Tomori and West Ham United’s Jean-Clair Todibo.
It wasn’t the most inspiring list for the here and now of a Champions League campaign, but both Ordóñez (22) and Harwood-Bellis (24) carried the most upside. With Ordóñez potentially unavailable for the next two months (maybe longer, since Crystal Palace have already pulled their own bid after a medical), Harwood-Bellis ticked more boxes for Unai Emery: his homegrown status is certainly a big plus for Villa’s Champions League squad submission.
Harwood-Bellis is a Manchester City academy product with 134 appearances for Southampton and a single England cap. According to the United Stand, Harwood-Bellis has also been discussed internally at Manchester United: nothing at the level of Benfica’s or Villa’s confirmed bids, but a sign of how far his stock has travelled this summer.
With Leon Goretzka, Zion Suzuki and Nicolas Jackson all now signed, Harwood-Bellis becomes Villa’s ninth signing of the summer, and the closing piece of a defensive rebuild.
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