Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins has admitted that criticism drives him on to improve.

The forward spoke about how being written off by a radio pundit inspired him to beat Arsenal at the weekend.

Villa picked up a surprising 2-0 win at the Emirates Stadium to move into fourth place in the league.

Watkins said, per Express and Star: “I put the radio on while driving to training the other day and heard Simon Jordan saying that he wasn't worried about me or Aston Villa causing Arsenal problems.

“It is nice to prove doubters wrong. Nice for him to eat his own words, really."

He then added on the Champions League race: “If they (Tottenham) came here and won nobody would be surprised. They play a similar style to us.

“Some people may be surprised by Sunday's result but I'm not. We've shown what we can do against the big teams and we deserve to be where we are.

“We've worked so hard here we can't now next weekend just throw it all away. We need to keep building from this, keep going and proving people wrong and show them we can get into the Champions League."