Two bids knocked back, then a third that stuck
Thirty million euros. That is roughly what Aston Villa are prepared to pay Southampton for Taylor Harwood-Bellis, according to The Athletic, whose reporting was picked up by Foot Mercato on Monday morning. The centre-back is expected to move to the Midlands before the window shuts.
Getting here took some doing. Southampton rejected Villa’s opening offer, then rejected the second one too, and only in the last stretch of negotiations did the two clubs land on a number they could both live with.
Harwood-Bellis is 24 and capped by England. He spent last season in the Championship after Southampton went down, which is not the sort of line that inflates a valuation.
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Emery has been hunting a centre-back since Konsa left
Ezri Konsa’s move to Arsenal left a gap in the middle of the back four, and Unai Emery has treated filling it as the single most pressing job of the window.
Other names were on the board. Joël Ordóñez and Jean-Clair Todibo both had files open at Villa Park before the club settled on the Englishman, a player with fewer headlines attached but one who knows the league and can slot in immediately.
He would be Villa’s ninth arrival of the summer. Nine. The squad Emery finishes September with will look very little like the one he started July with.
Nothing is signed yet
Neither club has said a word publicly. No fee has been confirmed, no medical announced, no photographs of a scarf being held up.
That should change quickly. The window closes soon.
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