• 20 hours ago
Matt Maher discusses all the ins and outs from Unai Emery's press conference ahead of their trip to Newcastle on Boxing Day.
Transcript
00:00Good afternoon from Boddymore Heath, well after Villa beat Manchester City 2-1 on Saturday all eyes are now on the Boxing Day trip to Newcastle where they'll be looking to fix some rather disappointing recent away form.
00:15Villa have lost their last four games in the Premier League and they're going to look to fix that record at a venue where they haven't won since 2005.
00:22A 3-0 win that day, a game famous for Lee Bowyer and Kieran Dyer fighting Newcastle players and Steven Taylor pretending to be shot after handling the ball.
00:35Perhaps it will be that bizarre on Thursday on Boxing Day. Villa have beaten obviously their 5-1 start of last season.
00:42If you'd have said that 16-17 months on Villa would be in the Champions League and looking good to get through the last 16 in the Champions League, probably wouldn't have believed you.
00:52But in memory today, some words of encouragement really for Oli Watkins. He said he'd spoken to the England international who has temporarily lost his place in the starting line-up to John Duran.
01:05There's obviously been a debate all season because of Duran's form, who should be starting. At the minute I don't think that debate really exists.
01:11Duran's scored in four consecutive games. He's scored in all six of the games he's started this year. He's got 12 goals. He's clearly the man who deserves to keep his place and Unai Emery pretty much said that.
01:22But you did say that you'd spoken to Watkins and basically reminded him that he's a big part of the plans, big part of the team at Villa.
01:31Watkins has obviously scored seven goals himself this season. He's joint top scorer in the Premier League with Duran but just two goals in the last 13 appearances.
01:40He admitted himself last week in an interview that it's been a tough season in many ways for him. Obviously a very late start for him because of his exploits with England at the European Championships.
01:53He was playing through an injury at the start of the season and then it's another little injury that he picked up in the game at Leipzig earlier this month which has allowed Duran into the team for a consecutive run of games starting.
02:07I thought Saturday's game was probably Duran's best all-round performance in a Villa shirt. He's probably going to keep his place at Newcastle but Watkins is still a big player for Villa and you wouldn't want to write him off.

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