Unai Emery achieved Champions League football in his first season in charge of Aston Villa, although he was helped massively by the irrepressible Ollie Watkins.
Emery has achieved some unbelievable feats in management. He claimed the Europa League three times in a row at Sevilla before triumphing a fourth time at Villarreal, unearthed a 17-year-old Bukayo Saka at Arsenal and has now transformed Ollie Watkins into one of Europe’s best strikers, all while guiding Aston Villa to Champions League football.
The Villans enjoyed arguably their best campaign for decades, finishing in the Premier League’s top four while reaching a European semi-final.
Watkins, who recorded an eye-watering 32 goal contributions in the top flight, including 19 goals and 13 assists, almost single-handedly dragged them into Europe’s elite competition.
How many points did Ollie Watkins win for Aston Villa?
According to Opta, as per the Athletic, only Chelsea’s Cole Palmer and Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah earned more points for their side than Watkins did for Aston Villa.
The Englishman’s goals and assists contributed to Villa earning an incredible 21 points. That was the difference between Emery’s men finishing fourth and 13th in the table.
Watkins importance to the Villans reached stratospheric levels as many felt losing the 28-year-old to injury would have been detrimental to their campaign, and they would have been correct.
20-year-old Jhon Duran played second fiddle to Watkins, and whilst he’s a talented striker, he wouldn’t come close to replicating the level of output he produced.
The former Brentford talisman also registered 13 assists, with only Villa target Alex Beana recording more across Europe’s top leagues in 2023/24 (14).
Ollie Watkins may have reached the pinnacle in 2023/24
Emery has dragged Watkins from an average Premier League striker to one of the world’s best in the space of 18 months.
The numbers he produced last term wouldn’t look out of place in some of Cristiano Ronaldo’s and Lionel Messi’s best seasons at Real Madrid and Barcelona, such is the monstrous output.
In recent years, we’ve seen several strikers return unbelievable numbers and then struggle to replicate or surpass them in the following campaign, with even Erling Haaland falling victim to that narrative.
Of course, the Norwegian goal machine still scored an eye-watering 38 goals in all competitions but in his first season in Manchester, he scored 56.
The 23-year-old was always going to suffer a bit of a drop off as anything can happen, including injuries or a slight reduction in form.
To put a long story short, it’s an unbelievable achievement for Watkins to produce 40 goal contributions in all competitions but to equal that record in 2024/25, or surpass it, would be out of this world.
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