Ollie Watkins form now cause for concern for Aston Villa and Unai Emery
Aston Villa gave their European ambitions a significant boost after a commanding 2-1 victory over Tottenham Hotspur at Villa Park on Saturday (13 May).
The Villans took the lead after just eight minutes when Leon Bailey beat Ben Davies on the edge of the Spurs box and squared a cross for Jacob Ramsey to smash home.
Douglas Luiz curled home a magnificent 25-yard free-kick after 70 minutes to double Villa’s lead before Emi Martinez was penalised for bringing down Harry Kane in the area, with the England striker scoring the subsequent penalty.
The win takes Aston Villa level on points with sixth-placed Spurs in the Premier League with just two games of the season remaining.
There were a number of excellent performances for Villa boss Unai Emery on Saturday, with John McGinn and Jacob Ramsey the standouts against Ryan Mason’s side and further establishing themselves as key cogs in a well-oiled Aston Villa machine.
However, one player that was slightly below par which will certainly have the Spaniard worried in the coming days, and that’s the form and performance of striker Ollie Watkins, who has now gone five games without scoring after his stunning purple patch which saw him score 11 goals from 12 Premier League games.
The England international has certainly gone off the boil in recent weeks, and in dramatic fashion looking a shadow of the player that wowed every Premier League fan before the middle of last month.
Since then, his form and performances have significantly tailed off and it reared its ugly head against Spurs on Saturday with the Villa Park favourite struggling to impose himself against a rather poor defence.
Despite Emery urging Watkins to play more centrally since his arrival at Villa Park, this latest performance highlighted the need for him to drift into the wider channels a touch more and influence the game more on a regular basis.
As per SofaScore, Watkins only managed to record seven successful passes out of 13, only registered four duels won, lost possession of the ball ten times and more strikingly failed to register a single shot on goal in a rather drab performance.
And those kinds of numbers have become a running theme in the last five games with the 27-year-old picking up similar poor average ratings which means Emery may have to come up with something different tactically if he is to get his main man involved in the play more.
It’s no secret that Aston Villa will be on the hunt for a striker to relieve all the pressure on Watkins beyond this summer, but it’s important Emery and the Villans try and get the best from him consistently in the long haul as there are no guarantees they’ll be able to secure many of their top targets this summer, with European football yet to be secured.
In other Aston Villa news, Emery has been urged to axe one three-pass flop after his struggles in the win against Tottenham.