Exclusive: Ty Bracey reacts to failed Aston Villa move for Ismaila Sarr
We’re delighted to welcome Villa View host Ty Bracey as our exclusive Aston Villa columnist each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at the club…
Ty Bracey is not overly disappointed that Aston Villa failed to complete a deal for Ismaila Sarr but expects a couple of new arrivals before the window shuts.
An agreement was reached with Watford over a £25million move for the Senegalese international winger on 20 August, but just two days later complications caused the move to collapse [Sky Sports].
Bracey believes the plan was for the Bees attacker to come in as an upgrade on Bertrand Traore who has since moved to Istanbul Basaksehir on loan for the season, but accepts that if the move wasn’t right it wasn’t meant to be and is more interested in the club signing a defender and a midfielder in the final days.
He exclusively told Villa News: “It looked like a bid was accepted. There was no medical booked, that I’m certain of. No medical happened. And we just couldn’t agree it on personal terms.
“It’s one of those things where if the personal terms aren’t right, or we aren’t willing to spend that amount on wages, then I completely understand.
“We don’t currently play a system with wingers theoretically, so it wasn’t a transfer I was opposed to. I thought he was a good attacking option. But we don’t play wingers, maybe we’re looking at changing our system, I don’t know.
“But I assume he was a like-for-like replacement [for Bertrand Traore]. I think he’s a better footballer than Traore but I think they’re similar types of players in terms of their size and speed, and I think that Sarr comes with a bit of a better end product than Traore. I think he was a like-for-like replacement for him.
“I think it all boils down to one-in, one-out. We openly said at the start of the window we’d done our business early, and if there were to be any more incomings then there needs to be outgoings.
“There hasn’t been a fat lot of those. I guess you could call Diego Carlos an outgoing because he’s going to be out for six to nine months with his injury.
“I expect us to see one more in the middle of the field. I think a centre-back and a centre-mid, definitely, will be what we’re doing. We really, definitely need to get more centre-back cover. I think we definitely need a centre-mid.
“But we’ve needed a CDM for a few years and we didn’t get one because we were waiting for the stars to align and the right player to come up, and that ended up being Boubacar Kamara.
“So I think we’ll be very sensible with our business but I definitely think we need an eight as well, I think that’s really important.”
£25million is still a lot of money even in the modern day Premier League, so if the club have reservations over a deal that is going to cost that much then they shouldn’t just plow ahead regardless.
Sarr’s arrival might have provided another exciting option going forward, and with Traore out of the picture the manager is potentially now a man light, not that he turned to the Burkina Faso international often.
But defence has to be the priority before the deadline and the difficulties in completing deals in the final days may make an alternative to the Watford man arriving unlikely, although amid a rough start to the season nothing can be ruled out.
In other Aston Villa news, Juventus want Douglas Luiz.