Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has backed Ollie Watkins to rediscover his goalscoring form amid his struggles so far this season.
The 29-year-old has scored just one goal in 19 appearances across all competitions so far this year, and while he has missed chances in that time, it looks and feels as though the process of trying to end his drought is becoming increasingly difficult as his confidence dissipates.
Donyell Malen was preferred ahead of him in our win over Wolves this past weekend, and although the Dutchman has proven to be an important alternative option so far this campaign with his goals and ability to be decisive in the attacking third, Emery remains adamant that he’s happy with what Watkins is contributing to the team, and is confident that the goals will come.
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“They are two very good players, and they are playing, both. And Ollie Watkins, he has my confidence, completely my confidence,” he told reporters, as per VillaTV.
“He’s always doing his task. Maybe he’s feeling under his normal confidence, playing matches, because he’s not scoring, but he’s never giving up about his task.
“And always, he’s doing positive work for the team, and he’s very, very important for us. And the goals are coming, sure.
“And of course, Malen’s performance, I am so, so happy how he’s getting his challenge, himself, adding us the work we need tactically, and of course, playing minutes, he’s going to score.
“His commitment with us as well is very, very important, how he is showing it.”
From Watkins’ perspective, he must continue to do the things that have made him so important for us over the past few years in terms of making those dangerous runs, getting into good positions and threaten in front of goal.
When that stops, it only makes the problem bigger, and so hopefully if he stays disciplined, carries out the instructions from the coaching staff, we’ll see him get back amongst the goals and provide us with an important boost moving forward as we need more firepower up top.
Further, we’ve seen multiple times when he has found that first goal he has a tendency to then go on a run of goalscoring form, and so hopefully that will be the case on this occasion too.
Evidently, he has the unwavering faith of Emery backing him, and while it could be argued that we need to add more goals to the squad in the January transfer window regardless, if we’re even able to do so from a financial perspective, we need our talisman to find some form as that will be a critical factor in our ability to sustain our push up the Premier League table and to compete for silverware this year too.