England have confirmed that Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins has withdrawn from the latest squad for their upcoming fixtures against Andorra and Senegal.
The first of the two games takes place on Saturday, and the 29-year-old would undoubtedly have been eager to feature as he looks to impress Thomas Tuchel ahead of the World Cup next year.
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However, as confirmed by England’s statement, Watkins has been forced to withdraw from the squad due what is described as a ‘minor injury’.
It’s added that the decision has been made as a precaution, and so the language used would suggest that it isn’t something to be concerned about as Watkins now looks ahead to recovering and resting over the summer.
Having arrived late for our pre-season preparations for the campaign just gone after being granted additional time off following EURO 2024, Watkins was blighted by a niggling injury during the early period of the season and he later admitted that it had a negative impact on his ability to play at his best during that time as he recovered.
He still enjoyed a productive year with 17 goals and 14 assists in 54 appearances across all competitions, while he became Villa’s all-time top Premier League goalscorer last month too.
In turn, provided that we don’t see him make a shock move elsewhere this summer with speculation linking a number of our players with an exit due to our PSR issues, he’ll now have time to recover, receive treatment if necessary and hopefully report back to Bodymoor Heath next month in full health and ready to prepare himself in the best way possible for what will be another gruelling campaign, in which he’ll be tasked with leading the line for Villa on a consistent basis.
Time will tell if Unai Emery adds more firepower to his squad this summer as it could certainly be argued that we need more competition and depth up front with Marcus Rashford’s loan stint coming to an end, but the most important thing will be to have Watkins firing to begin the new season, and so hopefully this latest injury issue isn’t anything to be concerned about in the coming weeks, as suggested in the statement above.
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