Aston Villa's Forward Line Transformation: Nicolas Jackson Joins
Aston Villa have ripped up their forward line and started again.
Nicolas Jackson is in, Ollie Watkins is heading out, and Unai Emery has just changed the face of his attack.
Villa have completed the signing of Jackson in a deal worth up to £65m, the Senegal striker arriving from Chelsea as the club’s new record signing and, in all likelihood, Watkins’ successor. Watkins, 30, looks set to join Saudi Pro League side Al-Hilal, ending a six-year spell in which he became the symbol of Villa’s resurgence.
This is not a tweak. It’s a reset.
A summer of upheaval
The Jackson deal drops into a dressing room already stripped of familiar voices. Morgan Rogers, Ezri Konsa, Youri Tielemans and Lucas Digne have all gone, part of a sweeping overhaul as Emery reshapes a Europa League-winning squad that had started to age in key areas.
The disruption showed on opening weekend. Villa were hammered 4-0 at Brighton, a performance that looked as disjointed as the summer’s transfer activity. With Watkins unavailable and both Tammy Abraham and 17-year-old Brian Madjo injured, Emery went into the game without a recognised centre-forward. Emiliano Buendia, a creator by trade, ended up leading the line.
It was a reminder: for all of Villa’s tactical detail under Emery, you still need a proper No 9.
Now they have one again.
Not just “the new Watkins”
Jackson doesn’t just replace Watkins’ squad number and wage packet. The numbers say he brings something very different.
On the surface, his output last season at Bayern Munich stacks up impressively against Watkins’ final campaign at Villa. Jackson scored 11 goals and added three assists in 1,320 minutes across all competitions, averaging 1.0 goal involvement per 90 minutes. Watkins, across a far heavier workload of 3,837 minutes, produced 21 goals and five assists – 0.6 goal involvements per 90.
Jackson shot more, and from better areas. He averaged 3.8 shots per 90 to Watkins’ 2.6, and 2.2 shots on target compared with 1.2. His expected goals (xG) sat at 0.7 per 90, ahead of Watkins’ 0.5, while he took 8.5 touches in the opposition box per 90, comfortably above Watkins’ 5.6.
That pattern isn’t a one-season quirk. Since January 2020, among players with at least 5,000 Premier League minutes, only Erling Haaland has posted a higher non-penalty xG per 90 than Jackson’s 0.55. He lives in the penalty area. He finds chances.
Finishing them has been the question.
Across his two Premier League seasons at Chelsea, Jackson underperformed his xG. He scored 14 goals from 18.7 xG in 2023-24 and 10 from 12.3 xG the following season. In England, he has converted 18 of 61 big chances. Watkins has not been ruthless in that metric either, scoring 24 of 73 big chances since arriving at Villa in 2020.
Look at last season alone, though, and the gap almost vanishes. Jackson converted 19.6% of his shots and 40.9% of his big chances. Watkins sat at 18.9% and 43.2%. The story of a wildly erratic finisher starts to look more nuanced.
There is a catch. Watkins started 43 matches and played almost three times as many minutes. Jackson started only 15 of his 34 appearances, with Opta warning that his substitute-heavy sample can inflate per-90 numbers. Sustaining that level over a full season is a different test entirely.
Pressing, running, and what happens without the ball
The contrast sharpens when Villa don’t have possession.
Jackson pressed high 34 times per 90 minutes, just ahead of Watkins’ 31.4. The real difference lies in what happened next. Jackson won the ball back 2.7 times per 90, compared with Watkins’ 1.8, and recovered possession in the final third 0.9 times per 90, against Watkins’ 0.6.
Among Opta’s striker sample, Jackson ranked in the 88th percentile for possession won in the attacking third. Watkins sat at the 43rd. That is a major shift in how Villa can defend from the front.
Their movement in behind is almost identical: Jackson averaged 13 runs per 90, Watkins 12.7, with the Englishman making slightly more runs that ended inside the box. Aerially, though, Watkins still holds the edge. He won 1.2 aerial duels per 90; Jackson managed 0.7. Watkins also carried the ball more directly towards goal.
So Emery is not buying a carbon copy. He is trading some aerial presence and direct carrying for extra touches, more frequent carries, sharper pressing and a higher volume of shots and chances.
The end of an era, the start of something else
Watkins has been Villa’s constant during one of the club’s most successful modern stretches: reliability, running power, goals, and a relentless willingness to graft. His 108 goals in 278 games have underpinned the rise from mid-table anxiety to European trophies and Champions League ambitions.
Jackson walks into that legacy with a different profile and a different stage of his career. At 25, he is five years younger than the man he replaces. He gets on the ball more, creates more for others, and, in limited minutes last season, generated shots and high-quality chances at a rate that will excite Emery’s staff as much as it unnerves opposition analysts.
The doubts are obvious and fair. Can those per-90 numbers survive a 3,000-minute season? Will the finishing issues that dogged him at Chelsea resurface when the pressure spikes in front of the Holte End?
Emery is betting that familiarity will help. He has coached Jackson before, understands his flaws as well as his strengths, and clearly believes that the underlying data points to a striker with significant room to grow rather than a flat-track volume shooter.
What is clear is that Villa are not just swapping names on the teamsheet. If Jackson arrives and Watkins leaves, the Europa League winners are making a deliberate, strategic shift.
They are not only changing their centre-forward. They are changing what it means to wear Villa’s No 9.
