Ollie Watkins has taken just six years to go from saving seaside small fry Weston-super-Mare from relegation to hat-trick hero against the Premier League champions.
After Aston Villa’s astonishing seven-goal romp against Liverpool on Sunday, Ryan Northmore – Watkins’ first manager at senior level - celebrated another compelling case for the preservation of English football’s arteries.
When Villa’s £28million striker was a model for designer label Ted Baker fashions, he would have gone to the ends of the earth to collect the match ball against Liverpool.
Now Watkins, 24, must be knocking on England’s door after beginning his career in front of 400 fans at a struggling club on the Somerset coast – where he knuckled down as an 18-year-old
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