Watkins started his career in League Two with Exeter City, but after becoming a proven goalscorer Brentford took a chance and splashed out £1.8million on the young striker.
He spent three seasons in the Championship with the West London club, before the Premier League came calling and he joined Aston Villa in 2020 for £28m.
Watkins has become the focal point of the Villa attack since and has broken into the England team, winning his first cap and scoring his first international goal against San Marino in 2021.
In July 2024, Watkins fired England into a second successive European Championships final after his last-gasp goal secured a dramatic 2-1 win over the Netherlands.
Watkins joined Exeter at under-11 level in 2005 and worked his way up to the first team by the 2013/14 season. He made his debut in May 2013 as a substitute in a 2-0 win over Hartlepool in League Two.
After a smattering of substitute for Exeter appearances in the 2014/15 season, he was sent out on loan to Weston-super-Mare in the Conference South. Watkins would make his mark on the team, scoring ten goals in 25 appearances.
Watkins finally made his first start for the club against Plymouth Argyle in a 2-1 win in the December of the 2015/16 campaign. In his first full season in League Two, Watkins would go on to score 9 goals in 22 appearances for the Grecians.
In what would turn out to be his final season at Exeter, Watkins bagged 16 in 52 matches across all competitions, including his first hat-trick against Newport in December 2016.
Exeter finished fifth in the table that season but Watkins was on the losing side in the 2017 League Two play-off final, as Blackpool secured promotion at Wembley.
On a personal level, Watkins won the EFL Young Player of the Year award.
Watkins joined Brentford in 2017 for a reported £1.8 million fee from Exeter.
In the 2017/18 season Brentford finished in 9th place just six points of the Championship play-off spots, with Watkins netting 10 league goals in 45 appearances.
His second season was an underwhelming one as Brentford finished in eleventh position, ten points from Derby who sat in sixth place. Watkins once again only scored 10 goals in 41 league appearances.
The 2019/20 season was Watkins’ standout year as he netted twenty-five goals in the Championship, only one behind Aleksandar Mitrovic who finished as top scorer that year.
That season he struck up a great partnership with Said Benrahma as the duo scored 57 goals between them that campaign. They were also the only two Brentford players who were named in the Championship team of the season.
It looked certain that Brentford would go up automatically, and finish comfortably in second place behind a free-flowing Leeds side under Marcelo Bielsa.
However, a 1-0 defeat away at Stoke and a 2-1 lost at home to Barnsley saw West Brom steal a march on Brentford and claim the final automatic promotion place by two points.
Brentford faced Fulham in the delayed 2020 Championship play-off final at Wembley, but the Cottagers ran 2-1 winners and the Bees missed out on promotion and were unable to hang on to their star names over the summer.
Once again Watkins secured another personal honour, claiming the 2020 Championship Player of the Year.
Watkins joined Aston Villa in the summer of 2020 after Brentford sold their star man for £28 million, a fee that could rise to £33 million.
Since signing for Aston Villa, the English striker has not looked back. In his debut season Watkins managed to score 16 goals - grabbing 14 in the Premier League and two in the Carabao Cup.
In his second season you could argue he underperformed for a man of his quality, as he only found the net only eleven times in 36 appearances across all competitions.
His under-performance could be put down to managerial uncertainity. Dean Smith was sacked on November 7th, 2021, after losing five games in a row against Tottenham, Wolves, Arsenal, West Ham, and Southampton.
Former Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard replaced Smith but even he struggled to get the best out of Watkins.
Gerrard’s time at Aston Villa was a short - lasting just eleven months in the job. He was sacked after Villa won just two of their first twelve matches in the 2022/23 season.
Unai Emery was appointed Villa head coach in October 2022, and Watkins found a new gear.
He scored fifteen Premier League goals that season, helping Villa to a 7th place finish and a place in the European Conference League for the 2023/24 season. That finish was Villa's highest since the 2009/10 season where they managed sixth position under Martin O’Neill.
In the 2022/23 season Ollie Watkins finished as the fifth highest English goalscorer in the Premier League, only falling behind to Harry Kane, Ivan Toney, Callum Wilson and Marcus Rashford.
Watkins netted 27 goals in 53 appearances across all competitions in the 2023/24 season and played an important role in Aston Villa's qualification for the Champions League after finishing fourth in the Premier League.
He was voted Aston Villa's Supporters' and Players' Player of the Season, and was named as the Premier League Playmaker of the Season after delivering 13 assists.
Watkins made his debut for England on March 25, 2021, against San Marino, where he would grab a goal in a comfortable 5-0 victory.
Watkins had the delayed Euro 2020 tournament in his sights that summer and though he was named in the provisional squad, he missed out on Gareth Southgate’s final squad. He also wasn't selected for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
However, after another impressive campaign for Aston Villa in the 2023/24 season he was picked for Southgate's Euro 2024 squad.
Watkins was a peripheral figure in the team until the semi-finals. He had a 20-minute cameo against Denmark but was unused until late on against the Netherlands.
Southgate made a bold decision to replace captain Harry Kane and Phil Foden with Watkins and Chelsea's Cole Palmer in the 81st minute, which proved a masterstroke.
The Chelsea star fed his fellow substitute to turn and hit a wonderful 90th-minute winner, sealing a last-gasp 2-1 comeback victory and a place in a second successive European Championship final.
Even more remarkable was Watkins apparently prophesying what would transpire as he said afterwards: “I said to Cole we were both going to get on the pitch and he was going to set me up at half-time. It happened. I manifested it.”
Watkins has been in a long-term relationship with Ellie Alderson, and the couple have two children together - Amara (2021) and Marley (2023).
Watkins is reportedly on £75k per week at Aston Villa, and his net worth is believed to be around £20m.
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