It’s not easy to live in the shadows of an overnight ‘superstar’ after having a breakout season. You may ask Ollie Watkins. The England international struck the net 19 times last season along with registering 18 assists. Come Fantasy Premier League 2024-25, he is suddenly overshadowed after a while by a certain Jhon Duran.
Things haven’t been easy for Watkins in the ongoing campaign. He was a template pick in fantasy football last time and ended up scoring 228 pts. The current season started with two blanks but he bounced back with a 35pt-haul in the next four.
However, Watkins seemed to have a diminishing impact in Unai Emery’s Villa lineup. He got substituted a lot of times before getting replaced. Villa’s shock win against Bayern Munich too, had Jhon Duran written on the top of it.
The sudden rise of Jhon Duran overlapped with Watkins losing the tempo. A seasoned campaigner in the Premier League and the one who hit the winner against Netherlands in the Euro 2024 semis to take England to the finals, found himself a second fiddle to the Colombian striker.
![FPL Ollie Watkins](https://www.thickaccent.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/FPL-Ollie-Watkins-1200x900.jpg)
But the FPL gods had other plans. Duran got an axe of a three-match ban in early January, which opened the doors again for the English forward. Watkins is in fine form now, having smashed 21 pts in the last three and 35 in the last five.
With Duran on the verge of a permanent exit to either West Ham or Al Nassr in the winter transfer window itself, Ollie Watkins can now reclaim his hotseat in the Villa forward line. He had formed a formidable pair with Morgan Rogers when the season was still nascent and can sharpen the collective edge going forward.
Watkins, who saw a price-drop in the middle of the season, touched a new record last gameweek. Emery’s starboy reached the 100-goal involvement mark in PL, becoming only the second Villa player after club legend Agbonlahor to reach this feat. Ollie has now 69 goals and 31 assists in the English top flight.
Going into gameweek 24, Watkins’ numbers are actually exciting — 10 goals and 5 assists from 19 starts. His underlying numbers also back up his potential in the remainder of this season’s FPL. The undoubted Villa no.9 at the moment, has an xG of 0.63 per 90’ and an xGI of 0.71 per 90’.
We must note that Ollie Watkins underwent a huge transformation under Spanish tactician Emery and remains a proven asset in FPL. Prior to his breakout season, in 2022/23 too, he scored 15 goals and recorded 8 assists. Even in 2021/22 and in 2020/21, his stats were quite impressive — 11 goals and 3 assists and 14 goals and 9 assists respectively.
Aston Villa has two consecutive plum fixtures in line now — Wolves(A) and Ipswich(H). And their fixtures look favourable right till the end of the season, as they don’t have any red labels on the FDR(Fixture Difficulty Rating) list apart from Chelsea, Liverpool, and Man City.
Watkins has gained ownership in the last three gameweeks and currently finds his name in 17% of the FPL teams. You can easily swap Haaland who will be playing in Fantasy Premier League 2033-34, for a £8.9m Watkins and ‘Alexander the Great’ Isak who has already become a template choice. I think Cody Gakpo could be your third forward if budget permits, as Liverpool has a double gameweek in GW24, the first of the season.