Watford forward Ismaila Sarr hasn't joined Aston Villa

They had the financial backing to meet Watford’s demands, they could offer the player what he wanted, and although Sarr had not asked for a move, he was happy to head north east given the Hornets were content and his agent felt it was a good move for all concerned.

I think the price quoted was £25m, plus some add-ons, and Sarr would be offered a deal of at least three years.

The supplier of the information seemed surprised when I thanked him for the details, but added that I’d wait to run a piece until I knew the deal was actually done.

He clearly felt affronted because the very same details appeared in a few other media outlets in the following 24/48 hours.

As you can imagine now, more than two months on, I’m glad I kept my powder dry.

Over the weekend I was messaged/tweeted by a number of fans, asking why I hadn’t written anything about Sarr joining Aston Villa. I’ve always maintained the same stance on transfers: I prefer to wait until I know it’s fact.

That was an approach that my friend and former boss Oliver Phillips drilled into me as a teenager at the Watford Observer. He explained the importance of being a paper of record – aiming to be the place where people went to check if something had happened. Who else bought the WO on Friday, and if a transfer, injury or other pieces of news about Watford wasn’t there, then you could rest assured it hadn’t occurred?

So that’s why I work the way I do. Of course, it is very tempting to run the sort of piece I’ve outlined above. Breaking rumours and gossip is exciting, and I take my hat off to those who seem to be able to be on the inside of so many deals.

However, in my opinion, if I/the WO did that, then how would anyone know what was the fact from the fiction? What becomes the place you go to be certain?

So I don’t have any negativity towards any area of the media that carries transfer gossip. I still watch Sky Sports News at night, just for the gossip really. But with so many forms of media these days, you can end up spinning if you try to follow everything.

I had one fan ask me why I’d not written about the Sarr transfer over the weekend “when you know it’s happened”. That’s the thing – I didn’t know it had happened. But what I did know was that it hadn’t. And just to complicate things, nobody could tell me with any degree of confidence whether it was on or off.

In fact, had I run every ‘cast iron’ transfer story I’ve been given this summer about Sarr, he would have joined Newcastle, then West Ham, then Crystal Palace before even getting to Villa.

I know there will be people who want all those stories. There are plenty of places you can read them. And in terms of Sarr and Villa, I saw lots of media outlets confirming it was a ‘done deal’, that the fee ‘was agreed’ and the classic ‘he’s having a medical in the morning’ all across the weekend.

I also knew it was a more complicated deal than Sarr just going to Villa – I was aware Watford were looking to bring players in the other direction. I didn’t want to risk scuppering that element by running what would have turned out to be an inaccurate story that the deal was signed.

One thing that I think does need to be said is that Ismaila Sarr caused no problems throughout the whole matter. He never agitated for a transfer at any point. He didn’t sulk, he didn’t down tools, he certainly didn’t cause the collapse of the move through any of his demands. I think it’s really sad when I hear and read that – why inaccurately throw a young lad under the bus?

To the best of my knowledge, the move was progressing until Saturday, when Villa manager Steve Gerrard decided he had changed his mind and didn’t want to sign Sarr. Watford then pressed on and made the move to take Kortney Hause on loan and, unless things change, Sarr will not be heading to Villa Park.

I think it’s also a shame that there were doubts around the validity of the news that Sarr missed the game at Preston due to the injury that kept him out of the Birmingham game in midweek.

I’m no fool – football clubs will pull those sorts of stunts to help themselves, whether that’s to protect a transfer, prevent a player going on international duty or whatever. I can recall an instance many years ago when I worked at Vicarage Road where we had two key players called up for their country but because we didn’t have three, we were still going to have to play a league game. Miraculously, a third player was called up for his country, didn’t get near the pitch but it meant Watford got a postponement and the match was played when all players were available.

Sarr was down to play on Friday night, having trained in the morning. He and Edwards felt he had progressed enough from Tuesday to make him travelling north worthwhile.

Even on Saturday morning, the tactics board and pre-match meeting would have featured Sarr as a starter. However, the player was concerned that he didn’t feel as comfortable as he should, and told Edwards. He still wanted to play, but he was being professional.

As Edwards told the media afterwards, he took the decision out of Sarr’s hands and pulled him out of the squad.

In his post-match press conference, he even laughed as he said to the media that he understood it looked suspect and that people would assume some subterfuge!

Ismaila Sarr has been loyal to Watford – he stayed when the club was relegated last time round and was a key figure in achieving promotion. He has not been banging down the door for a move this summer, and has simply got on with his job while waiting to see what happened.

There are still enough days left in this transfer window for him to end up leaving, though as I write (and we all know how fast things can and do change!) there’s nothing I’m hearing.

However, at this juncture, with a very publicly-touted potential deal now seemingly dead, and the player’s character and attitude being called into question, it felt like a good time for some accuracy to be added into the mix.

Read more: Kortney Hause joins Watford on loan