Ollie Watkins: Aston Villa striker commits future to club with new long-term contract, follows England recall

Ollie Watkins has put pen to paper on a new long-term contract at Aston Villa, the club have announced.

The 27-year-old forward had entered the final two years of his existing deal but has now signed an extension that will keep him at Villa Park for the foreseeable future.

According to The Athletic, Watkins has agreed a five-year deal that will run until the end of the 2027/28 season.

Watkins moved to Villa from Brentford in 2020 and has since scored 50 goals for the club. He has already bagged seven this year in all competitions, which includes two hat-tricks and four Premier League goals.

His form has been such that he earned a recall into Gareth Southgate’s England squad.

Watkins told TNT Sports in an exclusive interview this week that playing for England "is the elite of the elite."

The striker has reached double-digit goals in each of his three full seasons for his club and was instrumental in helping bring European football back to Villa Park for this year.

Watkins scored 15 Premier League goals last campaign which helped Villa finish seventh and edge out Tottenham Hotspur for a place in the Europa Conference League.

The Englishman was a part of the Exeter City academy before earning a call-up to the first team in 2015. In 68 appearances, he scored 21 goals before moving to Championship club Brentford in the summer of 2017 on a four-year contract.

From there, he joined Villa in September 2020 for a then club-record fee of £28 million, signing a five-year deal that would see him make his Premier League debut.

He scored on his Aston Villa debut in a League Cup match against Burton Albion before opening his Premier League account with a perfect hat-trick in a 7-2 win over Liverpool in October 2020.

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