Ollie Watkins

[eamonn]

Ollie out of the two for me.

Why? Wilson is a far more confident finisher.

[paul_e]

For me it's not really about Watkins/Ramsey/Konsa or me being a Villa fan. I'm happy to see players like Maddison, Dunk and Eze get the callups they deserve. What bothers me is that he spent ages early on talking about picking players on form and not having favourites but he's fallen into doing exactly what he implied he wouldn't. There's now a core of 15-16 players in the squad who will get picked regardless of form or fitness and he just shuffles the deckchairs around them.

We're playing teams where we should clock up 9-10 goals without too much trouble so the argument will be that his record is good so we shouldn't complain but we've seen 3 times in a row that the problem with that is that his narrow-mindedness, inflexibility and refusal to bow to pressure see us hit a ceiling. Everyone thinks he should drop Maguire so he'll pick him, and play him, to prove a point, same with Phillips.

That said my biggest problem is Gallagher, a guy who struggles to start in one of the most out of form teams in the league, who has done nothing in international football and has been shit when he has played all season, and yet he's somehow safely part of the squad ahead of a number of players who deserve that chance. Like he did with Phillips and Mount before he's decided this is a player he wants in the squad and no matter what happens, how often they play or how out of form they get they're untouchable. The only surprise in the squad is that he has finally seen sense and replaced Mount with Eze.

[Clampy]

Ollie out of the two for me.

Why? Wilson is a far more confident finisher.

He's only scored three more than Ollie this season and I like Ollies all round play.

[Risso]

Ollie out of the two for me.

Why? Wilson is a far more confident finisher.

He's only scored three more than Ollie this season and I like Ollies all round play.

He's played just over half the minutes that Watkins has.

[LeeB]

Ollie out of the two for me.

Why? Wilson is a far more confident finisher.

He's only scored three more than Ollie this season and I like Ollies all round play.

He's played just over half the minutes that Watkins has.

That in itself say a lot

[Ian.]

Ollie out of the two for me.

Why? Wilson is a far more confident finisher.

He's only scored three more than Ollie this season and I like Ollies all round play.

He's played just over half the minutes that Watkins has.

That in itself say a lot

Every season he only plays half the games. He is very good though.

[Clampy]

You could argue Wilson has had a striker alongside him (Isak). Ollie has in the main played as the loan striker in that mad scoring run he had but if people have stopped praising him now he's stopped scoring, then so be it. It's what some fans do I suppose

[Risso]

You could argue Wilson has had a striker alongside him (Isak). Ollie has in the main played as the loan striker in that mad scoring run he had but if people have stopped praising him now he's stopped scoring, then so be it. It's what some fans do I suppose

Ha ha, you just can't help yourself can you?!

[Clampy]

You could argue Wilson has had a striker alongside him (Isak). Ollie has in the main played as the loan striker in that mad scoring run he had but if people have stopped praising him now he's stopped scoring, then so be it. It's what some fans do I suppose

Ha ha, you just can't help yourself can you?!

What are you on about now?

[tomd2103]

How long before the whole “needs to be at a Champions League / “super six” club” to get in the England squad narrative starts.

[OCD]

Ollie's probably played himself out of the squad in the last few games. He should take a good lesson from this - turn that 11 game purple patch into the standard across a season. Do that and there's no discussion.

[chrisw1]

You could argue Wilson has had a striker alongside him (Isak). Ollie has in the main played as the loan striker in that mad scoring run he had but if people have stopped praising him now he's stopped scoring, then so be it. It's what some fans do I suppose

I don't think it's unreasonable to be of the opinion that Wilson is a better striker than Watkins.

[eamonn]

I didn't realise that Wilson was that old and it's true his injury record is poor. But, fit and in form, he's a step above Ollie. Happy to have Watkins but we need to break the bank in the summer to get consistent star quality up front.

[Olof's Beard]

Yep, no conspiracy from Southgate here. He always picks one back up to Kane and does tend to pick on form. You couldn't argue with Toney last time, nor Wilson this. Ollie is unlucky insomuch as he'd have been in if the squad had been picked four or five weeks ago but then the challenge for him is to prolong his periods of good goalscoring form across a season. 11 goals in 12 games was a cracking return and propelled us up the table but it means he's got 3 goals in 22 or so games across the rest of the season. He seems the sort who constantly strives for improvement so I'm sure he'll work hard across the summer.

[lovejoy]

Once you set aside the "picking on form" argument, the choices are fairly self explanatory. We have won with McGuire and Philips so he keeps picking them.