Unai Emery tells Ollie Watkins to stay hungry and backs Aston Villa ace for England recall

The Villa boss is delighted with both the 27-year-old’s form and attitude, revealing he often has to be dragged off the training pitch such is his desire to improve.

Watkins, who earned the most recent of his seven international caps a year ago, last week became the club’s first player since 1985 to score in five consecutive league matches and is aiming to continue the streak against Crystal Palace on Saturday.

Emery believes he has a strong chance of being included in Gareth Southgate’s squad for Euro 2024 qualifiers against Italy and Ukraine later this month.

He said: “I think he is close to the national team and that is good because we have our collective challenge here but it is also necessary for every player to have personal challenges as well.

“They must try to succeed every day in training, trying to improve his role in our matches.

“And of course if the national team can call him, he’ll be ready to do a good job with them too.

“He has played in the national team before. The form he is in right now, it would not be surprising if they call him up again.”

Emery views Watkins, who signed a five-year deal when he joined Villa from Brentford in 2020, as part of his long-term plan but believes there are still areas he can improve.

He added: “He is learning and is very competitive. Every day when we are finishing training, he wants to do more exercises and do more at the end of training, with individual coaches.

“Sometimes we have to stop him and say: ‘No, that is enough for today’. But it’s good. He has to keep this mentality because for him and the team, that spirit is the best.

“I want to support him with my experiences with strikers and trying to give him confidence to do more and more.”

Emery, who gave Kylian Mbappe his debut at Paris St Germain, admits his first instruction to strikers is relatively simple.

He explained: “I’ve worked with a lot of strikers and I gave him the challenge to score a lot of goals!

“In my teams before the strikers scored lots of goals and many of them achieved the best moments in their careers working with me.

“I have the same challenge now with Watkins.

“In football you can be consistent but the worst thing is when you relax.

“The first characteristic I really appreciate in him is his competitiveness, he wants more.

“Then he is as well building his career and building his future.

“I am happy of course when he is scoring and we are happy when his attitude is one example for others.

“He is building here with us at Aston Villa and we have to follow him and support him.”