Ollie Watkins has spoken of his anger at being excluded from the starting line-up for both legs of Aston Villa\u2019s Champions League quarter-final against Paris Saint-Germain.<\/p>\n
Watkins has scored 16 goals across all competitions this season, including one in the Champions League, but started neither tie of Villa\u2019s 5-4 aggregate loss, with on-loan forward Marcus Rashford selected as the sole starting striker.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old was substituted on in the 79th and 76th minutes of the tie, before scoring in the subsequent Premier League victories over Southampton and Newcastle United respectively.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played 20 minutes against PSG in both games, I am not going to lie, I was fuming that I wasn\u2019t playing \u2014 I let him [Emery] know that,\u201d Watkins told Sky Sports after the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the manager, at the end of the day you have to respect his decision. I am not one of these players which is happy to sit on the bench.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething I have not experienced before and to miss out on the biggest stage. I think me and a few others were disappointed that we didn\u2019t start the game, but it is the manager\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe team played well, but I wanted to be out on the pitch for much longer. I have played a big part to get to where we are today and I want to play in those games.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgainst Southampton I came off the bench. I was angry I wasn\u2019t playing and you have got to use that as motivation rather than let it hinder you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watkins scored in Saturday\u2019s 4-1 victory over Newcastle, as sixth-place Villa moved level on points with Nottingham Forest, in fifth, in the Premier League.<\/p>\n
Emery said of Watkins in his post-match press conference: \u201cHe was fantastic. To be angry is fantastic. To play like he did was fantastic. This is the competitive way I want.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a very good person and respectful always. His commitment is always very positive, with the team-mates, the coaches, the manager and the workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Watkins, it was a very good conversation and when he responded today, wow, i am so, so happy for him, the team and our objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Naomi Baker\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ollie Watkins has spoken of his anger at being excluded from the starting line-up for both legs of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[102,748,1614,393,4884,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-35294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-aston-villa","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-champions-league","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-northern-ireland","15":"tag-scotland","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114369693226507111","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}