Ollie Watkins

[jimmygreaves]

2 games, is "playing poorly", 2 assists.

[KevinRichardsonsMoustache]

17 hours ago, Jas10 said:

Will be firing once he gets into his groove…

and will be playing in a stronger team this season…

Totally agree.
 

Having better players around him means we don’t have to rely on him as often. Those stretches where everything he touches turns to sh**e will be masked a bit by the adventures of Diaby.
 

If both Diaby and Watkins start firing at the same time, we’ll be terrifying to defend against 

[AvfcRigo82]

Wasn't his best of games yesterday but I'm hoping it's just a glich and he will soon find his shooting boots.

Edited August 21, 2023 by AvfcRigo82

[macandally]

15 hours ago, useless said:

There were moments where he could have done better, but overall was okay, he's similar to Buendia in that even when he has games where his play on the ball isn't great, he's never totally uselss as his hard work always makes a worthwhile contribution, won penalty and on another day could have scored a few himself

Was going to post something similar, it’s like Buendia, Unai not just looking at the individual but contribution to the section of the field.  The middle third is weakened without Buendia linking midfield & attack.

If Watkins is not there, the forward line is weakened because his energy and effort creates turnovers, opportunities and goals elsewhere.

We spend too much time digging into the individual without considering the collective and the total outputs

[RichW]

Confident he will find his shooting boots soon, probably saving them for the trip to Anfield. Considering how reliant Villa were on him for goals in the second half of last season I'm encouraged Villa scored 4 yesterday and Watkins/Diaby weren't on the score sheet. 

[VillaJay]

What Ollie lacks in technique and composure he makes up for in spades with hard work. He's hugely important to this team and I get the frustrations with his inconsistent dribbling and first touch but we still have a way to go before we as a team outgrow Ollie.

I'd back him to score 20+ in all comps this season.

[allani]

16 hours ago, CVByrne said:

I think people haven't realised how football has changed and how many goals a no9 gets in a season now. 

Not really about goals - it was more the occasions when he got the ball and should have laid it off but instead either got barged off the ball (some of which arguably should have been given as a free-kick) or ran straight at the first defender and got tackled (without ever really looking like he was going to go past him).  By his standards it wasn't a great performance yesterday and I would hope / expect that he will have felt annoyed / frustrated.  That doesn't mean he isn't a really important player for us and I still think he'll get close to, or even break, the 20 goal mark this season because I think we'll see more team performances like yesterday than like Newcastle away and so he's going to get more chances than ever before.  It was a poor game yesterday (at least from an attacking perspective yesterday) but one poor game does not a bad player make.  And let's be clear by poor I mean it was a 6-/10 performance not a 4/10 performance.  And as someone else has said two poorish performances (although I'd discount the Newcastle one as the whole team struggled) but he's still got two assists....

I would be very surprised if Emery or one of his team isn't sitting down with Ollie and running through the video of the match highlighting when there were better options available so that hopefully he can continue improving.

Obviously the fact that we were already 3-0 up helped but it was good to see that Emery was happy to take Ollie off yesterday and keep him fit / healthy for the next match.  What was even better was that we continued to look like an attacking threat even after he went off.  It might only have been Everton but we do need to make sure Ollie gets some rest through the season. 

[DakotaVilla]

Just needs a goal to go on one of his streaks. That’s exactly what the conference league is there for. 

[Tom13]

20 hours ago, MaVilla said:

he's just so poor technically, a couple of times where he gets the ball and starts a run, you just know he isnt going to pass it (as he doesnt have great vision), and he will just run in to a player and get dispossessed, 93rd min versus Brighton was a classic, and he did it a couple of times today also, he just isnt a technical player, playing in a team that tries to be technical.

He is a good striker, but a bit like Cash imo, his weaknesses are very much on show when he has some very technical players around him.

I dont dislike Watkins, he has a lot of strengths, but my lord is he technically poor.

Spot on.

[Tom13]

18 hours ago, Captain_Townsend said:

We won 4-0. Watkins is one of the most prolific strikers we have had in the past 30 years.

Why do some fans always look to moan about a player?

Because he has weaknesses that are blatantly on show every week, so we like to discuss them. Should we all pretend he's perfect?

[Tom13]

17 hours ago, CVByrne said:

I think people haven't realised how football has changed and how many goals a no9 gets in a season now. 

What?

[villa89]

37 minutes ago, VillaJay said:

I'd back him to score 20+ in all comps this season.

That's the minimum we should expect. He is going to play around 50 games this season assuming he doesn't get a serious injury. 

Edited August 21, 2023 by villa89

[CVByrne]

He created the most chances and had the most key passes of any player on Sunday. He also won the penalty for our key 2nd goal. 

His work stretches the lines between midfield and defence of opposition and crates the space for players like Diaby to operate in. 

Debating system football with people who don't understand the concepts is a fools errand. 

[allani]

54 minutes ago, macandally said:

Was going to post something similar, it’s like Buendia, Unai not just looking at the individual but contribution to the section of the field.  The middle third is weakened without Buendia linking midfield & attack.

If Watkins is not there, the forward line is weakened because his energy and effort creates turnovers, opportunities and goals elsewhere.

We spend too much time digging into the individual without considering the collective and the total outputs

Disagree about the midfield being weaker without Buendia.  Ramsey starts ahead of him every day of the week for me and is better at linking the midfield and the attack - although in a very different type of way.  That said Buendia would still have been an important player this season but more from the bench (because he's still a really good player and so there's not a big drop-off in quality when he comes off).  Also McGinn had an absolute blinder playing that role yesterday so you could also argue that it is not going to be easy for Ramsey or Buendia to displace him. 

But I do agree with the general point that you are making!  I thought Ollie was poor yesterday but even though he was poor he was still helping the rest of the team. 

It was interesting yesterday that the Italian commentators were slightly incredulous when we brought on Tielemans, Carlos and Couts and were talking admiringly about the quality on our bench especially taking into consideration the fact that we have a bad injury list with Mings, Moreno, Ramsey and Buendia all out and that Zaniolo wasn't available either - all of whom could very easily argue that they should be in the starting XI.  The collective is really beginning to look pretty good - we just need to expand the depth a bit to address the injury situation and the volume of matches that he (hopefully) will have to play.

[Tom13]

1 hour ago, jimmygreaves said:

2 games, is "playing poorly", 2 assists.

Yes, you can still play poorly, even if you get an assist with a hopeful header

[VillaJay]

3 minutes ago, villa89 said:

That's the minimum we should expect. He is going to play around 50 games this season assuming he doesn't get a serious injury. 

Scoring 20+ goals even with conference league to contend, is no easy task and very few players score more than that in the PL each season.

Considering Ollie doesn't pad his tally with pens like Ivan Toney and others, he's done well each season he's been here.

He won't be on pens this season either so 20+ would be a very good return.

[DakotaVilla]

20 minutes ago, Tom13 said:

Because he has weaknesses that are blatantly on show every week, so we like to discuss them. Should we all pretend he's perfect?

If he was perfect he wouldn’t be playing for us and please name the perfect striker that works as hard as Ollie that you would replace him with assuming a reasonable max spend of £50m?

Edited August 21, 2023 by DakotaVilla

[abdulaziz1]

This guy is strange, he clearly isn’t a good finisher, but his workrate is unbelievable. He has some good attributes as holding play and pace. His decision making is improving. With all his bad parts, I wouldn’t like to replace him quickly as he’s important to our way of playing, and most of striker signings fails rather success. Add to that with our way of playing, I don’t think it’s easy to find the right replacement let alone if its a success or not. 
I think next summer we’ll have to try and upgrade, wether he’ll improve more or not, wether he’ll sign a new contract or not, all will affect, but he’ll be the sellable asset we have. Hopefully Duran can step up so atleast we have someone to cover atleast incase our next signing won’t be perfect. 
Anyway we still have a long season, if for example we qualified to the Champions League, then again we won’t try and disrupt the squad. Really looking forward for the season. 

[bobzy]

6 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

He created the most chances and had the most key passes of any player on Sunday. He also won the penalty for our key 2nd goal. 

His work stretches the lines between midfield and defence of opposition and crates the space for players like Diaby to operate in. 

Debating system football with people who don't understand the concepts is a fools errand. 

I think this is often overlooked - he, Bailey and Diaby moved that defence around so much they didn't have a clue what to do.  At one point in the first half, Watkins was playing wide left with Diaby through the middle and Bailey on the right.

That said, he didn't have a great game.  Thought he delayed a couple of attacking passes and he needs to work on beating a player one on one (it's fine if he holds it up and turns back, but he needs to have the ability to go the other way too).

On the effort that went wide, I actually think the pass from Diaby was slightly underhit, but it made a massive difference in that particular chance.  More out in front of Watkins and he puts his foot through it.

 

But yeah, he's not really a worry to be honest.  

[allani]

1 minute ago, VillaJay said:

Scoring 20+ goals even with conference league to contend, is no easy task and very few players score more than that in the PL each season.

Considering Ollie doesn't pad his tally with pens like Ivan Toney and others, he's done well each season he's been here.

He won't be on pens this season either so 20+ would be a very good return.

I think he's going to get pretty close to 20 league goals this season.  I mean he's scored plenty in a team that has struggled or when the player supporting him have struggled (joint highest scorer last season was 6 I think) - so with Diaby and (hopefully!) Zaniolo offering more of a threat around him, that will give Ollie more space, more time and I think more chances to exploit.  Given how much we've already improved our attacking options (and I don't think we are done) I think it is really between him and Isak for second top scorer in the division (assuming that Haaland is uncatchable).