Watkins vs Toney: Aston Villa star puts debate to bed against Brentford

Tom Weber

Updated: 6 Apr 2024 18:02 BST
4 min read

Ollie Watkins, Douglas Luiz, Aston Villa, Ivan Toney — © IMAGO

Ollie Watkins dispelled any last doubts that he is a superior striker to Ivan Toney with his performance against Brentford.

Article continues under the video

In recent weeks, a debate had been raging about whether Toney or Watkins should be going to Euro 2024 as England's second-choice striker behind Harry Kane. During the previous international break, Brentford star Toney certainly garnered some arguments in his favour by cooly converting a penalty against Belgium.

However, as FootballTransfers already explained in March, on the basis of the entire season and the overall play of the two strikers, Watkins is a clearly superior option to Toney. The Aston Villa man has notched a ridiculous 24 goals and 10 assists across all competitions this term and if he were playing for one of England's biggest clubs, the question wouldn't be whether he is good enough to be Kane's understudy but whether he should start ahead of him.

Both Toney and Watkins are at the peak of their powers at age 28, but the Villa striker offers so much more than just a goal threat and this is recognised by data analytics firm SciSports. The experts give Watkins a much, much higher ability score than Toney, which is based on a calculation using hundreds of data points.

Watkins puts debate to bed

In light of the debate, it was fitting, then, that Villa and Brentford would square up shortly after the international break. The two sides faced off on Saturday in what turned out to be an absolutely scintillating clash at Villa Park, with the spoils ultimately shared after a chaotic 3-3.

The game took place on the back of a gruelling week that saw both sides in action midweek. While Watkins was rested against Man City and started against the Bees, Thomas Frank made the decision to rest Toney - who has been dealing with hip problems - against Villa, so the two strikers ultimately only played against each other for ten minutes or so.

Nevertheless, Watkins conclusively put the debate to bed with a clinical, two-goal, Man-of-the-Match performance that saw him convert both of his shots and win most of his duels, while Toney extended his Brentford goal drought to eight games. Watkins is not just a good finisher, but he offers much more to his team than Toney.

Whether a team like England, which already has elite creators and just requires a cold-blooded finisher, needs a player like Watkins is, of course, a different question, but there is no doubt that most sides in the world would much rather have a useful allrounder like Watkins.