Aston Villa announced the shock signing of Southampton striker Danny Ings (£8.0m) on Wednesday evening.
With the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) fraternity and wider footballing world awaiting the rubber-stamping of Jack Grealish‘s (£8.0m) seemingly imminent move to Manchester City, the Villans threw us a curveball by confirming the capture of Ings.
The 29-year-old forward follows Leon Bailey (£6.5m), Emi Buendía (£6.5m) and Ashley Young (£5.0m) in making a summer move to Villa Park.
Villa head coach Dean Smith said of Ings’ capture:
Danny is an outstanding Premier League footballer who has scored goals wherever he has played.
He is also a top professional with a great character who will be a leader in our squad and a role model for our rapidly developing young Academy players who are now in and around the first team. I am delighted to welcome Danny to our great club.
The move may well have ramifications for Ollie Watkins (£7.5m), FPL’s most owned forward – at the time of writing, anyway.
In the half-hour after Villa’s announcement, his Fantasy ownership percentage had already dropped by 0.3%.
Ings’ own figure had risen from 4.4% to 4.7% in that time.
Watkins was a nailed presence in the Villa attack in 2020/21, missing only one game through suspension and completing 90 minutes in 36 of his 37 appearances; the only time he didn’t was due to a late-season red card.
There’s an obvious rotation risk now, then, although it should be said that Watkins played his first two seasons at Brentford mostly on the flanks so he and Ings could be incorporated in the same system, even without a move to two up top.
What that would do to Watkins’ goal threat is another question, of course: he scored 10 goals in both 2017/18 and 2018/19 when playing mostly out wide but 25 as a centre-forward in his final year with the Bees.
We’ll have more coverage on this story in a Moving Target piece tomorrow.
