{"id":597646,"date":"2021-07-30T15:12:28","date_gmt":"2021-07-30T19:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=597646"},"modified":"2021-07-30T15:15:31","modified_gmt":"2021-07-30T19:15:31","slug":"southampton-villa-ward-prowse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/07\/30\/southampton-villa-ward-prowse\/","title":{"rendered":"Southampton Reject \u00a325 Million Bid From Aston Villa for James Ward-Prowse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/07\/14\/southampton-discussions-newcastle-united-isaac-hayden\/\" target=\"_self\">Southampton<\/a> have rejected a bid for midfielder James Ward-Prowse from <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/07\/28\/jack-grealish-transfer-manchester-city-bid\/\" target=\"_self\">Aston Villa<\/a>, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dansheldonsport\/status\/1421106625520324611\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">David Ornstein<\/a>. Villa&#8217;s offer was reportedly \u00a325 million, but Southampton are poised to demand more for the England international.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Aston Villa&#8217;s Approach for James Ward-Prowse Rejected\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Transfer Activity at Villa Park<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Aston Villa have been active in the transfer market this summer. They signed Argentine attacker Emiliano Buendia from <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/07\/21\/daniel-farke-new-deal-norwich-city\/\" target=\"_self\">Norwich City<\/a>, while Ashley Young returned to Villa Park after 10 years on a free transfer after leaving Inter Milan.<\/p>\n<p>Several players have also departed, with full-backs Neil Taylor and Ahmed Elmohamedy released, while Bjorn Engels completed a permanent transfer to Royal Antwerp.<\/p>\n<p>Their transfer activity lingers around the uncertainty surrounding Jack Grealish, with the attacking midfielder targeted by <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/07\/30\/manchester-city-ederson\/\" target=\"_self\">Manchester City.<\/a>\u00a0The 25-year-old continues to be linked with a move to the Etihad Stadium, and the Premier League champions have\u00a0made an opening offer of \u00a3100 million for Grealish.<\/p>\n<p>It remains to be seen whether Villa&#8217;s talisman last season stays at the club, but their approach for Ward-Prowse is not connected to the situation.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>James Ward-Prowse: A\u00a0Difficult Target <\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>James Ward-Prowse is the latest target for Villa manager Dean Smith. Ward-Prowse was included in England&#8217;s 33-man preliminary squad for Euro 2020, but he did not make the final 26. The England international is an excellent set-piece taker, scoring four direct free-kicks in the Premier League last season. The central midfielder is Southampton&#8217;s captain, and signed a new five-year deal last summer.<\/p>\n<p>Southampton are under no pressure to sell Ward-Prowse. They made a good start last season, and were close to the top for a long time. Their form fell away in the second half of the season, however, and they finished 15th in the league. Ward-Prowse was one of their better players, and manager Ralph Hasenh\u00fcttl has the midfielder in his plans for next season.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"9gJ_ATyETWhsSLaLz__RPQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1329940237\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'9gJ_ATyETWhsSLaLz__RPQ',sig:'zF7hTpvU5KZYQGj55D83b4GThEKEpcBh4Ue0fnc-l3U=',w:'594px',h:'391px',items:'1329940237',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Southampton have rejected a bid for midfielder James Ward-Prowse from Aston Villa, according to David Ornstein. Villa&#8217;s offer was reportedly \u00a325 million, but Southampton are poised to demand more for the England international. Aston Villa&#8217;s Approach for James Ward-Prowse Rejected\u00a0 Transfer Activity at Villa Park Aston Villa have been active in the transfer market this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3900,"featured_media":597672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,3838,3,20,28],"tags":[2023,2659],"class_list":["post-597646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-aston-villa","category-premier-league","category-southampton","category-transfers","tag-dean-smith","tag-james-ward-prowse"],"modified_by":"Ben Robinson, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3900"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}