It was quite the season for Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins this past year, and it’s hopefully just the start as he continues to develop under Unai Emery.
The 28-year-old enjoyed his most prolific season to date at Villa this past campaign, scoring 27 goals and providing 13 assists in 53 appearances across all competitions.
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While he fell agonisingly short of reaching the 20-goal mark in the Premier League with 19, he picked up the award for most assists as he showcased another exceptional side to his game, and so coupled with the achievement of the collective in securing Champions League qualification, it was a positive campaign all round.
The England international has improved and developed significantly since Emery’s arrival, as he is more shrewd with his movement and positioning on the pitch to put himself in areas where he can make a decisive impact.
We still see the superb work ethic from him in defending from the front and applying pressure to the opposition, while he will continue to offer an option either to hold up play in deeper areas or run the channels to stretch the pitch and create space for others.
However, that has been refined under Emery to ensure he is in the right areas at the right time to score more consistently, and we’ve seen in pre-seasons how Watkins works diligently and tirelessly on his finishing to improve that aspect of his game.
Things are starting to fall into place for him at Villa as he’s taken his goalscoring to the next level, and the trust and belief shown in him from Emery has certainly played a key role having moved Danny Ings on, tweaked the squad to ensure we have depth and cover, but to ultimately make Watkins our main man up top leading the line week in and week out.
His durability and reliability must also be commended as he was an almost ever-present in the Villa XI this past season, and that was crucial in not only improving his own numbers, but to the way we played as a team to sustain what was a brilliant push to secure Champions League qualification.
As Emery and his coaching staff continue to get more out of Watkins and impart more wisdom on him on how to improve through meticulous and relentless video sessions and training, we’ll hopefully see even more from him next season.
That will come as a result of being more effective and consistent in our overall style of play to ensure he has the service to thrive off, and it will likely help significantly if we can have better injury luck next year and keep our creative and attacking players healthy throughout the campaign to build that chemistry and familiarity.
It was a great year for Watkins and Villa, but the challenge now is to sustain that in the Premier League and produce in the Champions League against elite opposition. He’ll no doubt thrive on that test, and he’ll hopefully continue to showcase what a top player he is.
