SHOWING WAT HE'S MADE OF

England reject caps an Ollie good show as Villa boost their Champions League hopes

- BY JONATHAN VEAL

OLLIE WATKINS fired the perfect response to his England snub by helping Aston Villa to a valuable win over struggling West Ham.

Watkins, who has been off-colour this season, saw his World Cup dreams suffer a big blow on Friday when he was left out of Thomas Tuchel's squad for the friendlies with Uruguay and Japan.

But his second-half goal, after John McGinn opened the scoring, fired Villa to a huge three points in the race for Champions League qualification.

Watkins said: "Everyone wants to play for their country, but I expected (to be omitted) because my form has not been that great.

"I know what I can do and when I put on an England shirt I feel like I have always performed well."

After seeing rivals Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea all drop points, Unai Emery's men produced their best performance for several weeks to end a four-game winless run in the Premier League.