The one thing Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins did in pre-season that hints at future plans

Transfer speculation around Aston Villa’s only senior striker continues but Villa’s plans are progressing with the club’s record Premier League goalscorer at their heart.

Ollie Watkins has been linked with Manchester United and Newcastle United in the current summer transfer window despite neither of them giving any indication that they’re willing to even get close to a fee that would tempt Villa to talk to them.

Watkins has scored 75 Premier League goals for Villa since joining the club from Brentford in 2020 and has been one of Villa’s smartest signings ever.

He’s 29 now but his importance to Villa has only increased over the years, so much so that selling him this summer without a seriously good replacement would reveal a falsehood in everything the club wants to be.

Villa being forced to sell to either of those clubs would be a slap in the face to supporters anyway, not to mention another blow to any notion of Premier League football being a worthwhile sporting exercise.

Newcastle have had their own problems this pre-season but if they were able to use Liverpool’s money to tempt Watkins away from Villa we might as well all pack up and go home.

For now, Watkins is operating as Villa’s first choice centre-forward and is being prepared as such. Having had a proper break from playing for the first time in a while he looks in tremendous nick and his sharpness in front of goal is a positive sign ahead of the new season.

Watkins didn’t get a full pre-season last summer and it showed, I think, between August and May. He still scored 16 goals in the Premier League in a team that qualified for Europe, reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League and got to an FA Cup semi-final.

A tactical tweak in pre-season?

For a player of his stature and penalty box instincts, Watkins isn’t necessarily tasked with being a reliable source of headed goals.

He’s scored nine goals with his head in the last two Premier League seasons combined – a good return, certainly – but it hasn’t really been Emery’s primary plan for his striker and Watkins might feel he should have taken more of his headed chances given his ability in the air.

But he’s scored in all three of his appearances since returning to the squad after a break and his two headed goals in Villa’s friendlies in the United States, one against St Louis City and one against Nashville, were as ruthless as any we’ve seen from him in a Villa shirt.

The obvious explanation is that Watkins is a capable header of the ball and isn’t under pressure to put them away in pre-season. He’ll have been honing his technique as well, because he’s a proper pro and that’s what they do.

There might be something else at play, though, and it starts all the way back in Villa’s defence.

Unai Emery has looked at loads of defensive different shapes and combinations in Villa’s five pre-season friendlies to date, with the apparent aim of making sure the team retains a solid base while the full-backs (or wing-backs, occasionally) focus on attacking.

Villa working with greater width?

Villa have been looking for width. Whether it’s been Ian Maatsen or Lucas Digne overlapping a tucked-in Jacob Ramsey on the left, Donyell Malen causing havoc as a winger on the right, or even a fluid back line designed to send Andrés García up the right flank, a lot of Villa’s work has been designed to provide a threat from wide areas.

Two headed goals in two games for Watkins is no coincidence.

Whether it translates to a slight increase in headed goals in competitive matches and an expedited step towards the 100 Premier League goals he craves is something to look out for in Villa first few games of 2025/26.

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