{"id":173802,"date":"2025-12-04T00:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T00:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/173802\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T00:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T00:47:10","slug":"ollie-watkins-back-to-his-best-3-10-completely-out-of-his-depth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/173802\/","title":{"rendered":"Ollie Watkins back to his best, 3\/10 completely out of his depth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img width=\"1140\" height=\"641\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Watkins-Emery-1140x641.jpg\" class=\"attachment-single-feature size-single-feature wp-post-image\" alt=\"Ollie Watkins next to Unai Emery\" layout=\"fill\"  style=\"object-position: 50% 20%\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Credit: Imago<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/10047eb34f7cdee34cb2e9cc996ca0f3\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" alt=\"Alex Oakhill\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>   <\/p>\n<p> Wed 3 December 2025 21:38, UK Updated Wed 3 December 2025 22:47, UK <\/p>\n<p>Aston Villa ran out 4-3 winners in a crazy game against Brighton, taking all three points back to the Midlands.<\/p>\n<p>Brighton raced into a two goal lead, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astonvillanews.co.uk\/2025\/12\/03\/mike-dean-reacts-instantly-to-footage-of-brighton-vs-aston-villa-controversy-on-sky-sports\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jan Paul van Hecke forcing in the opener<\/a> before Pau Torres poked into his own net.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.astonvillanews.co.uk\/tag\/aston-villa\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aston Villa<\/a> fought back quickly though, Ollie Watkins sliding home to halve the deficit before then levelling the scores with a smart finish just before the break.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.astonvillanews.co.uk\/tag\/unai-emery\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Unai Emery\u2019s<\/a> side came out for the second half with a renewed sense of energy, Amadou Onana powering home from a corner, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astonvillanews.co.uk\/tag\/donyell-malen\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Donyell Malen<\/a> then adding a fourth just seconds after coming on.<\/p>\n<p>With seven minutes left to play, Van Hecke grabbed his second of the afternoon with a strike from the edge of the box, but Villa managed to hang on and secure all three points.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"675\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/unai-emery-3-1024x675.jpg\" alt=\"Aston Villa manager Unai Emery looking happy while clapping\" class=\"wp-image-59943\" \/>Credit: ImagoOllie Watkins sends message to Unai Emery<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.astonvillanews.co.uk\/2025\/11\/24\/ollie-watkins-aston-villa-future-in-jeopardy-after-pathetic-scenes-vs-leeds-united\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watkins came into the contest in absymal form<\/a>, having not scored in his last 11 Aston Villa games across all competitions.<\/p>\n<p>The England international showed his class against Brighton though, dragging Villa back into the contest after they had fallen two goals behind.<\/p>\n<p>When his team needed him most, Watkins stepped up, sliding home an Ian Maatsen cross to halve the deficit.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"734\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/imago1067575101-1024x734.jpg\" alt=\"Ollie Watkins smiling while playing for England\" class=\"wp-image-64222\" \/>Credit: Imago<\/p>\n<p>Moments before half-time, the 29-year-old found the back of the net again, bursting through on goal and making no mistake with the finish.<\/p>\n<p>Marco Bizot bailed out by Aston Villa teammate<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.astonvillanews.co.uk\/2025\/11\/30\/aston-villa-player-ratings-vs-wolves-emi-martinez-puts-on-a-show-3-10-abysmal\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Emi Martinez was the hero in Aston Villa\u2019s 1-0 win over Wolves<\/a>, but the Argentine picked up an injury in the warm up and was forced to pull out of the lineup.<\/p>\n<p>Marco Bizot came in for the 33-year-old, but his lack of match sharpness was clear, and he almost cost Emery\u2019s side he game.<\/p>\n<p>Bizot was at fault for Van Hecke\u2019s opener, before failing to keep out Torres\u2019 deflection, as Brighton went 2-0 up.<\/p>\n<p>StatsMarco BizotGoals Conceded3Expected Goals Prevented-1.15Errors leading to a goal1Bizot struggled against Brighton<\/p>\n<p>The Dutchman did make a superb save in the final seconds to prevent Danny Welbeck netting an equaliser.<\/p>\n<p>Aston Villa player ratings vs Brighton<\/p>\n<p>Marco Bizot \u2013 3\/10<\/p>\n<p>Matty Cash \u2013  7\/10<\/p>\n<p>Ezri Konsa \u2013 7\/10<\/p>\n<p>Pau Torres \u2013 4\/10<\/p>\n<p>Ian Maatsen \u2013  6\/10<\/p>\n<p>Amadou Onana \u2013 7\/10<\/p>\n<p>Boubacar Kamara \u2013 6\/10<\/p>\n<p>John McGinn \u2013 6\/10<\/p>\n<p>Morgan Rogers \u2013 8\/10<\/p>\n<p>Evann Guessand \u2013 5\/10<\/p>\n<p>Ollie Watkins \u2013 9\/10<\/p>\n<p>Substitutes<\/p>\n<p>Lucas Digne \u2013 5\/10<\/p>\n<p>Youri Tielemans \u2013 5\/10<\/p>\n<p> Donyell Malen \u2013 7\/10<\/p>\n<p>Emi Buendia \u2013 6\/10<\/p>\n<p>Lamare Bogarde \u2013 6\/10<\/p>\n<p>Enjoyed this article?\u00a0Stay connected with all the latest Aston Villa news, updates, and behind-the-scenes content by following us on our new Instagram account \u2013\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/villanews247\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">@villanews247<\/a><\/p>\n<p>  <script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Imago Wed 3 December 2025 21:38, UK Updated Wed 3 December 2025 22:47, UK Aston Villa ran&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,95596,43,64889,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-173802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-marco-bizot","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-ollie-watkins","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}