Aston Villa head into a Champions League trip to Club Brugge on Tuesday without a goal from open play in their opening three Premier League fixtures, a run that piles immediate pressure on Unai Emery and his rebuilt attack.
The Story in Pictures
The scoreless streak highlights the scale of Villa's summer turnover. Six members of last season's Europa League-winning starting XI have moved on, and the club spent record fees and substantial sums to reshape the front line. Nicolas Jackson arrived for a club-record £65m as a direct replacement for Ollie Watkins. The overhaul also included Ibrahim Mbaye and Alejandro Garnacho, following Morgan Rogers' £117m move to Chelsea.
Watkins left for Al-Hilal for £51m after a spell in which he produced a club-record 91 Premier League goals for Villa, removing a proven creator and finisher. Emery has shown faith in Jackson, starting the Senegal forward in the most recent two matches. Jackson's résumé includes 30 goals in 81 appearances for Chelsea, and his Premier League numbers draw a mixed picture: in seasons that overlapped with Watkins, Jackson recorded 14 goals and five assists in his first top-flight season compared with Watkins' 19 goals and 13 assists. In 2024-25 Jackson scored 10 goals to Watkins' 16 in 382 fewer minutes. Jackson's conversion rate across those Premier League campaigns was 13.2% versus Watkins' 19.1%, although Jackson's time at Bayern Munich returned a 21.1% conversion rate with eight goals in 1,004 minutes.
Emery identifies integration as the principal task. Ten new players are competing for places and must absorb the manager's tactical demands in training and matches. Only two summer signings, Jackson and goalkeeper Zion Suzuki, started Villa's draw at Hull, while Taylor Harwood-Bellis was omitted from the squad. Emery expects Mbaye, a £47m arrival from Paris St-Germain, and Garnacho, on loan from Chelsea, to become primary feeders for Jackson, supported by Brian Madjo and Tammy Abraham.
"We must be patient, and we should understand that we are rebuilding the team," Emery said. "Now they must get our way and demands, keeping the same mentality that we built, but with different players. Now is no time to think two weeks or three weeks forward. We must try to focus on each match. The next match is the Champions League and something we can feel excited and motivated to play because we deserve to be there. Now it is to compete in Brugge on Tuesday. Then, we are going to think about the next match at home against Nottingham Forest. Each match is a lot of information we can have. We are collecting information individually and collectively about the players, about the structure, about the capacity to build the team."
Emery also praised academy winger George Hemmings as "clearly a Premier League player," noting the 19-year-old had only 25 minutes of top-flight action before this season. Villa's immediate challenge is to produce attacking cohesion quickly enough to avoid a deeper early-season slide, with a Champions League group fixture and the visit of Nottingham Forest arriving before the international break.
