Aston Villa boss Unai Emery hopes Ollie Watkins’ brace in a 4-3 comeback win at Brighton signals a return to prolific goalscoring. Villa ascended to third in the Premier League after overturning a two-goal deficit. Watkins ended an 11-game drought, trebling his season tally.
The high-flying Villans showed tremendous resilience to overturn a two-goal deficit at the Amex Stadium, registering an eighth victory in nine top-flight outings and soaring to third place in the Premier League table.
Forward Watkins, who was recalled to the starting XI, cancelled out Jan Paul van Hecke’s strike and a Pau Torres own goal to net twice, trebling his tally for the season and ending a significant drought of 11 games without a goal.
Amadou Onana and substitute Donyell Malen completed the turnaround for Villa before Van Hecke ensured a tense finale with his second of the evening.
The England international now boasts an impressive tally of nine career goals in 10 appearances against Brighton.
Despite the crucial match-winning performance, Emery issued a challenge to the striker to maintain a high level of output and focus.
“With Ollie, he’s giving me confidence always when he’s working, when he’s focusing on the match, like he was doing,” said Emery.
“Not scoring, sometimes the confidence is getting low but the goals are coming. Today he started it and hopefully he can keep now the balance between working and getting numbers.”
The thrilling win came despite a late alteration before kick-off when goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez withdrew injured during the warm-up due to feeling “blocked in his back.”
Back-up keeper Marco Bizot was forced into action, being at fault for Van Hecke’s opener but redeeming himself with a crucial added-time save to keep out Danny Welbeck’s header.
Emery later praised Bizot: “He knew his role here. He’s ready when he’s available. He performed fantastic… How he saved the last action was fantastic.
He’s every day working very well and he’s always been so, so mature and so, so responsible about his role.”
The defeat saw Brighton slip to seventh position and ended their 10-match unbeaten home record.