No goals in their first three Premier League games, with one shot on target, has followed a summer of change. They open their second Champions League campaign under Unai Emery at Club Brugge on Tuesday aiming to ignite the season. Villa took five games to score their first top-flight goal last season before ending the campaign triumphant, winning the Europa League in Istanbul.
Since then, six of the starting XI from that victory have departed Villa Park, leaving them rebuilding their forward line. Record £65m buy Nicolas Jackson has replaced Ollie Watkins, while Ibrahim Mbaye and Alejandro Garnacho have arrived to fill the gap left by Morgan Rogers' £117m move to Chelsea. Emery has revamped Villa before, but can he find their new attacking edge?
Watkins' departure to Al-Hilal - which lurched between acrimonious and emotional - has left Villa without their best attacking outlet. Despite just one goal in his first 13 top-flight games last season he ended with 16 to leave for £51m on 91 Premier League goals, a club record. Jackson was brought in as Watkins' direct replacement and was a priority signing for Emery having worked with him at Villarreal.
Emery gave the Senegal striker his debut at Estadio de la Ceramica and believes he can rely on him to fill the void Watkins has left. He has started Villa's past two games, the 1-0 defeat by Arsenal and Saturday's draw at Hull. Jackson scored 30 goals in 81 appearances for Chelsea and the stats slightly favour England's Watkins, when they both played in the Premier League between 2023 and 2025.
In his first Premier League season the 25-year-old scored 14 goals and assisted five, compared with Watkins' 19 goals and 13 assists. In 2024-25 Jackson scored 10 goals to Watkins' 16 in 382 fewer minutes. He only had eight fewer shots but his conversion rate of 13.2% was inferior to Watkins' of 19.1%.
Jackson's touches in the box are also lower than Villa's departed striker - 168-231 in 2023-24 and 153-182 in 2024-25. Yet, Jackson's time at Bayern Munich - helping them win the Bundesliga last season - gave him a 21.1% conversion rate, scoring eight goals in 1,004 minutes of game time. It is why Emery trusts Jackson, but the unknown is being able to gel a new core of players together, however high their potential.
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