Watkins has mentality to reach the very top... and Klopp’s already clocked Villa’s young goal star
SOMETHING chimed with me when I heard Dean Smith talking about Ollie Watkins last week.
The Villa manager said his forward used to beat himself up a lot when he missed chances, but is now much stronger mentally to deal with it. And that is the key to developing into a top class striker.
If I can give only one piece of advice to any goalscorer it is this: don’t be afraid to miss. Sounds simple, eh?
But goalscoring is a mental game as much as physical and it is natural, as a striker, that if you miss a chance, the next one goes begging – because you are still beating yourself up about the last one.
There is a fact about goalscoring, though, that most people don’t get.
You miss far more than you score. If you look at the stats, even the top strikers’ conversion rate is incredibly low. Even Lionel Messi. The art of being a striker is about being relaxed at the crucial moment – taking the pressure off yourself.
So, if you are inevitably going to miss chances, they can’t stay with you. You can’t have it gnawing away at you.
That’s piling intense pressure on yourself and you see it so often – forwards miss a chance and then snatch at the next one or don’t make the run hide behind the defender. That’s pressure.
At the top level, it’s mostly in the mind. The belief in your process, if you like. Keep doing the right things, keep making the right runs, keep believing that if you miss a chance, another will come, and you’ll have the clarity and calm to convert it. I look at Liverpool’s forward line at the moment, one that was the best in the world a year ago, and they don’t have that clarity, they are so obviously fogged up by missed chances... so it can happen to the very, very best of us.
The top players, though, come through it, because they have the mental strength and self-belief.
It’s what gets them to the top.
Which is why I liked what Ollie Watkins’ manager said about him so much.
That confirms what I’ve seen over the past two years: a striker who is developing and taking the step up every time he is asked to. He was playing on loan at Weston-superMare only five years ago.
But he stepped up at Exeter and stepped up at Brentford. Now he’s been asked to make the biggest step of all – into the Premier League – and done it too. That shows he has the mentality to be a top striker.
It angers me when people say it’s about instinct, you are a born goalscorer. No, you’re not.
It’s about countless hours of hard work. And it’s about application and learning. You learn every single time you step out on the football pitch. I look at him and I see a striker who is prepared to learn, prepared to work. In fact, I spotted last year his work rate is incredible, and Dean Smith says he’s the best pressing centreforward in the league.
To me, that’s significant. Because what do the top teams want? A forward who performs a crucial pressing role.
Manchester City, Liverpool, United, Chelsea. They all want a striker who performs the press with energy and intelligence – and does more than one job.
Of course, they’d like one who scores, too, but it’s not just about goalscoring any more. Far from it.
Look at Roberto Firmino at Liverpool, look at City without a recognised No.9, and Chelsea sticking with Timo Werner.
I’m not trying to sell Watkins, but he’s taken the step up every time so far, and I can see him doing it again. To the very top level, if he can keep the trajectory of his work rate, attitude and mentality.
Interestingly, Jurgen Klopp absolutely sang his praises a few weeks ago and you can definitely see someone with his pressing ability – and the stats to go with it – doing well under that sort of manager.
And, believe me, clubs like City and Liverpool with their massive analytics departments will have run those stats many times already.
Many people said the £28million Villa paid for Watkins was a gamble. Some said it was crazy. It looks neither now and you wonder if it may just have been a shrewd investment.
I think he’ll go to the Euros with England – and I think he’s ready to
step up again.
Many said £28m was a crazy gamble. It isn’t now