There is a temptation to see players pushing for such moves as a new thing but you only have to think about how Aston Villa’s relationship with Dwight Yorke ended to remember some impressions of the good old days are false.
Unlike Ollie Watkins, Yorke turned out for Villa on the opening day of the 1998-99 campaign but according to his manager, John Gregory, he “never moved an inch,” during a goalless draw at Everton. “He (Yorke) sulked for 90 minutes,” Gregory claimed during a 2024 interview with the Under the Cosh podcast, where he concluded that a lack of effort was “part of his plan”.
Gregory famously suggested at the time of Yorke’s subsequent transfer to Manchester United that “if I’d had a gun, I would have shot him”, but the messy divorce worked out for a striker who formed a devastating partnership with Andy Cole and won the treble during his first season at Old Trafford.
Both Watkins and Julian Alvarez needed only to look at Newcastle United’s 2-2 draw with Liverpool, however, to know that pushing aggressively to get out of a club comes with risk.
Last summer, Liverpool’s purchase of Alexander Isak for a British transfer record was brokered after the player went on strike, but he arrived at Anfield without a pre-season schedule behind him and he has since struggled with fitness and injury.
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