Dean Smith Aston Villa
Aston Villa have been linked with a move for Watford midfielder Will Hughes. Hughes helped the Hornets win promotion back to the Premier League from the Championship in 2020-21. The former Derby County man has a year left to run on his current contract.
Will Hughes said: “I’m really happy here, I’m settled, back in the Premier League. There’s nothing better and that’s how I want it to remain. It’s as simple as that. There are no thoughts in my head about me moving elsewhere. That’s in my agent’s and the club’s hands. That’s not something I’m really concerned about and it’s not something that I’ve really thought about. I’ll give my all for Watford until my contract is up.”
Hughes has more than 300 appearances to his name, and previous Premier League experience with Watford. Villa have also been credited with an interest in Southampton and England midfielder James Ward-Prowse. And they completed their first signing of the summer on Thursday, with Emi Buendia joining from Norwich City in a club record deal.
Dean Smith said: “We’re always looking for targets and hoping we can go and grab bargains, that’s what we’ll be hoping to do. We’ve got a shopping list and we’ll try to invest wisely. We proved last season with the ones we got in – such as Ollie Watkins, Emi Martinez, Betrand Traore and Matt Cash – that we were quite astute. Hopefully we can do more of the same. We had four new permanent signings at the start of this season and Ross Barkley on loan. We thought that helped us progress again. We feel again let’s go and get quality over quantity this year.”
