Unai Emery expects goals to start flowing for Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins
By Sunny Badwal, PA
Aston Villa boss Unai Emery believes “the goals are coming” for striker Ollie Watkins after he opened his account for the season in the 3-1 win at home to Fulham.
England forward Watkins made amends for a penalty miss in the narrow Europa League win against Bologna in midweek when he brought Villa back on level terms before the break following Raul Jimenez’s early headed opener for the visitors.
Villa put Fulham on the canvas with two goals right at the start of the second half – John McGinn’s drilled effort into the bottom-left corner making it 2-1 before Emi Buendia added another less than two minutes later to give Villa lift off.
Emery said of Watkins: “Hopefully he keeps going, but it’s the consequences of how he played on Thursday.
“He missed the penalty, which was important, but the most important and the first step forward is sticking to your tasks and he was doing that on Thursday and today.
“The goals are coming hopefully for the next matches.”
Emery admitted Villa’s first Premier League victory of the season was much-needed and he could see confidence flooding back.
“We needed to win it was very clear,” he said. “We played with energy and passion and changed through the match because we recovered confidence.
“In the second half we started aggressive, trying to use those minutes, taking chances to score, and we did it and it was a fantastic response of some players after the goal.
“We started poor but we showed the same enthusiasm as we did on Thursday and through that we won and some players have have started scoring.”
Fulham wanted a couple of penalties in the first half when goalkeeper Emi Martinez made contact with Josh King, but referee Andrew Madley booked the latter for simulation.
King also saw a goal-bound strike blocked by the arm of Matty Cash but no penalty was given and Marco Silva’s first-half frustrations landed him a yellow card.
He said: “We have to blame ourselves for the goals we conceded, they were too soft for the level the Premier League demands.
“The things we cannot control have happened too often this season and this afternoon was another good example.
“The reality of our season so far, we have lost two games and see the way we lost the two games – Chelsea, the VAR decisions and this afternoon again.
“Very quick decision from the referee to go yellow card (on Josh King). I’ve seen the images and it’s clear. He was tackled 100 per cent by Martinez, I’m sure. No one can tell me he wasn’t.
“Cash did not do it on purpose at all but he made his body bigger with the left hand. Last week it was a penalty against us but this week it was no penalty.”
