The new Premier League season gets underway on Friday and fantasy football managers all over the world are staring down the barrel of the first deadline of 2025/26.
Fantasy Premier League team selections everywhere are being lined up and locked in this week. The point of no return is 90 minutes before the opening fixture between Liverpool and AFC Bournemouth, so wherever you are with your team at 6.30pm UK time on Friday, make sure you don’t have any regrets.
Haven’t made your final choices yet? You’ll be looking for some big hitters – players who’ll score well on the regular and finish the season near the top of the FPL points table. Easier said than done.
If you’re participating in Fantasy Premier League this season, why not join the AVF classic league and head-to-head league and pit your wits against your fellow Villa supporters?
You might also be in the market for a differential or two and that’s where Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins might come in.
Watkins is available at the outset for £9.0m, roughly the amount Manchester United were actually interested in buying him for in real life.
That makes him a direct competitor for your affection and selection with the likes of Arsenal man Viktor Gyökeres at the same price, Liverpool signing Hugo Ekitike at £8.5m and West Ham United’s Jarrod Bowen at £8.0m.
There are a bunch of pretty handy £7.5m strikers available and that’s one reason to consider Watkins over the slightly more expensive Alexander Isak – one reason of many, in his case – or the vastly more costly Erling Haaland.
Picking Watkins might free up the cash to go for Mohamed Salah or partner him with one or even two of the £7.5m forwards knocking about and expected to bring in the points.
Watkins or Gyökeres will be a choice many fantasy managers are making this week. You’ll feel all warm and fuzzy if you plump for the Villa man and he separates you from the pack, won’t you?
I have high hopes for Watkins this season. Last year, he was the fourth highest scoring striker in the game with 186 points. Recalculated for this season’s new points system, that’s 180 points and makes him the tenth best scorer in FPL last season as opposed to the ninth.
Villa supporters and Watkins himself would accept that 2024/25 wasn’t his best season. He returned to Premier League action without a full pre-season after going all the way at EURO 2024 with England and it showed.
16 Premier League goals and eight assists is a perfectly cromulent return but both flavours of goal contribution were down on the season before and he seldom looked at his very best.
This year is different. Watkins, rested, returned to Villa along with their other internationals in mid-July and has been in terrific goalscoring form in Villa’s friendlies since then, scoring five times. Friendlies are friendlies but there’s an argument that a striker would rather be scoring than not.
Recharged, match-fit and raring to go, I think Watkins will explode out of the traps this season. He has an exciting surrounding cast around him and two major ambitions to fulfil this season, both of them entirely within his gift.
Firstly, Watkins wants to go to the World Cup. If he scores regularly, he will do that. It’s that simple. He will have his eyes on that prize and he’s not the type of professional to be knocked off-course when he sets his mind to something like that.
Secondly, he passed a significant milestone last season and became Villa’s record Premier League scorer with 75 goals. He wants 100.
The last time Watkins scored 25 league goals was in his last season in the Championship with Brentford but the notion parped around by Manchester United supporters this summer that a 29-year-old is somehow finished is laughable.
Hitting the ton would require the best season of Watkins’ career. Do you want to bet against him?
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