Ollie Watkins scored his 100th goal for Aston Villa on Thursday night as Unai Emery’s side beat Bologna 4-0 to advance 7-1 on aggregate into the Europa League semi-finals.
The strike made Watkins only the 12th Villa player to reach the century mark, and the first since Peter McParland in the early 1960s. He said it was “definitely a milestone I’ll cherish” and added that it “only gives me motivation to score 100 Premier League goals now.”
Watkins arrived from Brentford in 2020 and has now compiled 269 appearances and 44 assists for Villa, a return that underlines how central he has become at the club. He was also dropped by Thomas Tuchel from England after the international break as the coach looked at a more physical profile of forward, only for Watkins to respond with two goals away to Bologna immediately after that pause.
That kind of response has followed him through a career that has carried praise and scrutiny in equal measure. He was rejected by Exeter City as a young boy before later signing schoolboy forms, and he also spent time on loan at Weston-super-Mare in the sixth tier. Under Emery, his role has been tightened from the wider positions he occupied under Steven Gerrard to spending more time on the width of the box, a change that has helped him turn moments into numbers.
Watkins said he liked the Nottingham Forest tie in January 2026 and pointed to the goal itself as the sort of finish that still matters to him, saying he valued it because it came from outside the box. For Villa, the next step is already set: a semi-final against Nottingham Forest, with Watkins now carrying a century of goals and a longer run of work behind it.