“Horrific on our part” – Derby County: Claim dropped on Ollie Watkins transfer regret

Derby County will feel a tinge of regret to this day for falling short in their pursuit of Ollie Watkins, who was a hot young property at Exeter City back in 2017 but ended up joining Brentford at their expense.

Admittedly, the thought of Watkins lining up in Derby colours is difficult to envisage now.

The Aston Villa star has cemented his reputation as one of the most feared forwards in the country after continued prolific campaigns in the Premier League and became an England hero over the summer when he came off the bench to net an all-important 91st winner in the EURO 2024 semi-final against the Netherlands, sending the nation into complete pandemonium.

At 28, which many would argue to be a prime age for a striker, the best may still be yet to come for Watkins, who launched his career all the way back in the 2013/14 campaign with boyhood club Exeter City and has improved near year-on-year ever since. The striker scored no less than 27 goals across all competitions last season while adding another 13 assists from just 53 appearances, helping Villa to return to the UEFA Champions League for the first time in more than 40 years.

But you do have to wonder what sort of course his career would’ve taken had he joined Derby in the summer of 2017 instead…

Ollie Watkins was close to joining Derby County from Exeter City

Watkins blossomed into a breakout star at Exeter and left in the summer of 2017 following an impressively productive 2016/17 campaign, in which he scored fifteen goals and assisted seven in League Two.

In the January transfer window, though, Watkins was very much on the cusp of moving to Pride Park amid significant interest from then-Rams boss Steve McClaren before the deal fell through. Watkins, who was aged 21 at the time, proceeded to join then-Championship rivals Brentford for merely £1.8 million in the summer, while Derby struck a £2.5 million deal for David Nugent.

When quizzed by the Derbyshire Telegraph two years later, Watkins revealed he had wanted to join Derby at the time but Exeter’s demands prevented the deal from going through – which has hardly held him back, looking at his career trajectory now.

“Steve McClaren wanted to sign me, and I wanted to go there at the time,” Watkins said.

“Then it kind of fell through – so it could have been a lot different!” I could have been a Derby player but I stayed at Exeter and things worked out for the better here at Brentford.

“It was just down to money, I think. Exeter wanted a little bit more money at the time, and a loan back, because we were doing well and ended up getting to the play-off final that year.

“It didn’t work out, unfortunately, but I’m glad I came to Brentford.”

Verdict offered on Derby County’s Ollie Watkins transfer regret

We asked our resident Rams fan pundit, Shaun Woodward, to name one player that Derby were linked to and regrettably didn’t end up signing. Unsurprisingly, Shaun opted to name Watkins, who would’ve represented an immeasurably better investment than Nugent in both the immediate and long-term future.

Three years after signing for Brentford, Watkins was sold to Villa for a reported £28 million figure while Nugent managed to score 17 goals from 95 appearances before joining Preston North End in 2019.

“The obvious one for me is Ollie Watkins,” Shaun explained to Football League World.

“I know firsthand living down in the South West that he was very close to signing for us from Exeter. I don’t think we offered the money Exeter wanted which, on reflection, is horrific on our part, considering we’ve wasted millions on some real, absolute dross over the years.

 

Yet we didn’t pay the £1-2 million for Ollie that Exeter wanted at the time, and we ended up signing an aging David Nugent. The rest is history really, you’ve just got to look at the way Ollie’s career has gone and I’m not saying the same would’ve happened if he had signed for Derby but what a talent, what a player we could’ve had at the club.

“So yeah, that’s one that got away that I really wish we’d managed to get.”