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Peter Crouch described Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins as a “manager’s dream” after his match-winning performance on Saturday against Arsenal.

The Villa centre-forward scored the early goal of the game inside the opening couple of minutes, as his team secured a 1-0 home win over Arsenal.

It meant that Dean Smith’s side jumped up to eighth in the Premier League table with another three points and they are genuine contenders for the European positions this season.

Watkins, 25, has found no problems stepping up to the top-flight and has been a superb signing from Brentford.

The quick striker now has 10 league goals this season, as well as a further two in the Carabao Cup.

Crouch gave the English attacker enormous praise after his contribution against Arsenal and has suggested he could be knocking on the door for a first call-up to the senior England squad.

“He’s a manager’s dream. Works so hard, high intensity running, works hard for the team, he can finish,” Crouch told BT Sport 1 (2:40pm, 6 February).

“He’s put himself in the conversation [for England] with the amount of goals he’s getting and the way he’s performing.”

TBR’s View:

Watkins came up with the winner against Villa and was his usual busy self in the final third of the pitch.

The £75,000-a-week man gives so much to the Midlands club both on and off the ball, which is why he’s crucial to the plans of manager Smith.

If Watkins is going to have a sniff of breaking into the England squad ahead of the summer’s European Championships, he’ll surely have to continue scoring goals at a quick rate for the rest of the entire season.