Ollie Watkins’ woes increase Aston Villa’s clamour for Marcus Rashford as he nears the exit door, while Unai Emery’s *actual* best player sparkled again…
Aston Villa have handled juggling their first year back in the Champions League and domestic duties better than Newcastle United and Leicester City, but Unai Emery’s side are crawling over the finish line.
Their Champions League return was always likely to make this season unforgettable for Villa supporters, but their run in the competition surpassed expectations as they didn’t just turn up to make memories; they competed with some of Europe’s elite and proved they are worthy of sitting at the top table.
Amid the overwhelming attraction of the Champions League, Aston Villa have impressively done enough to remain in the race for the five Champions League places with four games remaining and reach the FA Cup semi-finals.
This has been helped by Villa’s near-faultless recruitment amid the obscene level of growth in the time of Emery’s tenure, with the rate of success for their much-needed January additions much higher than is standard for signings during the winter window.
Still, it’s only natural with ever-increasing fixture congestion that their new-look schedule was going to take its toll eventually and this brick wall has threatened to end, what was once promising to be a particularly special season, with a few games remaining.
In the space of eleven days, Aston Villa exited the Champions League, were humbled at Wembley via a comfortable 3-0 loss in the FA Cup semi-finals against Crystal Palace and suffered a damaging late 2-1 defeat against top-five rivals Man City.
There was no shame in succumbing to a supreme PSG side over two legs, but Villa’s flat performance against Crystal Palace was more concerning as they were easily overpowered by their bogey side.
Aston Villa deserve to be lauded for their remarkable development as they made a mockery of the supposed ‘Big Six’ elite and it feels wrong that this season could end with a whimper, but this is what they were at risk of heading into a must-win game against Fulham at lunchtime on Saturday.
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To earn a second successive season in the Champions League, Villa need to be pretty perfect in their remaining four games, with a win against Fulham moving them level on points with sixth-placed Nottm Forest and fifth-placed Chelsea.
Villa’s no-show at Wembley dampened morale, but you can often rely on Emery’s side to put in a performance on home turf.
They made a bright start against Fulham and put themselves on course to extend their unbeaten home run to 17 games when they opened the scoring shortly after the ten-minute mark.
It was as simple as you like from Villa’s perspective as Youri Tielemans capitalised on Fulham’s zonal marking with some great movement to get on the end of John McGinn’s corner and to power his header past Bernd Leno.
This huge early boost could have set up a procession had Villa hammered home their advantage with Fulham sloppy in possession, but groans were heard at increased decibel levels as the hosts followed the visitors in taking their foot off the gas with a sub-par remainder of the half.
Morgan Rogers often takes the limelight from Villa’s perspective, but Tielemans deserves just as much credit as he’s arguably topped all of his teammates as Emery’s best player this season.
His placing in our Premier League team of the season is certainly justified as the versatile midfielder fits perfectly into Emery’s Villa set-up and his immense passing range caused Fulham endless issues.
Tielemans should feel aggrieved that his brilliance was not capitalised on and most of his disdain should be reserved for Ollie Watkins, who did himself no favours as the Marcus Rashford clamour continues to grow.
Watkins has cut a frustrated figure as Emery and Villa’s supporters have latched onto a new toy, with it looking increasingly likely that his time at the club is ending, with recent developments on and off the pitch kick-starting transfer speculation.
Had 2024/25 Watkins played against Fulham, he’d have left with the match ball. Instead, he was withdrawn with 20 minutes having failed to become Villa’s all-time Premier League scorer in the place of non-natural striker Donyell Malen.
The England international had a sniff at goal before Tielemans’ opener with a difficult header that was too high, but his subsequent chances were more scoreable as he spurned a couple of one-on-ones, while he fluffed his lines after being found with a perfect Matty Cash cross with the goal gaping.
Emery will be praying for a miraculous injury recovery from Rashford (which feels like a pipedream) to give Villa necessary boost as Watkins’ wastefulness set up a needlessly tense end to the match for Villa as they hung onto their 1-0 lead and they got through a few nervy moments to get over the line, with Donyell Malen’s stoppage-time chance off the bar threatening to kick Watkins while he was down.
This was a must-win match for Villa. While it was not pretty, their spent squad got the job done, but they are unlikely to be as lucky against Bournemouth (A), Tottenham (H) and Man Utd (A) in their remaining games if a similarly off-peak perforformance is replicated with their Champions League hopes hanging in the balance with at least seven points likely required to sneak past rivals into the top five.
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