Aston Villa's 'stinker' admission even after Sir Alex Ferguson made bold claim against Newcastle

Ollie Watkins has revealed that he learned a valuable lesson following his 'stinker' in Aston Villa's 5-1 defeat against Newcastle United.

Clinical Newcastle took Villa apart on the opening day of last season at St James' Park. Although the score was 1-1 after a quarter of an hour, a double from Alexander Isak and goals from substitutes Callum Wilson and Harvey Barnes fired Newcastle to a convincing win on an evening the Magpies had 13 shots on target, nine big chances and an XG of 3.41.

Sir Alex Ferguson, however, chose Villa as the side who impressed him most on the opening weekend. The Manchester United legend 'could not believe the scoreline' after Aston Villa played 'fantastic football and just lost bad goals'. Sir Alex even suggested you can 'play teams off the pitch and not score'.

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Villa, to their credit, went on to qualify for the Champions League after finishing in fourth place, but that defeat at St James' stuck with Watkins.

"Having the right people around me is massive," the England international told the High Performance podcast. "That small circle is one of the most important things.

"I always keep people at arm's length but, also, I always get a good gauge of people and if I had a good game, I've scored and it's on Sky or whatever, you come into the changing room and your phone is full of messages and I've got people saying, 'Well done mate. Well done.' But then I learned something.

"When I've come in and I've had a stinker like the first game of the season when we lost 5-1 to Newcastle, I've come in and I only had a couple of messages but off my best pal and my missus saying, 'It's fine. Don't worry.' They're the true people that actually care about you. They're not there for the good times; they're there when it's not going so well as well."