Aston Villa boss Steven Gerrard has rubbished talk of losing Ollie Watkins this summer.

The England striker is being linked with West Ham.

But Gerrard says: "We love Ollie and really enjoy working with him. To take this club where we need to take it, we need goal scorers, we need top players and Ollie Watkins is a top player. I will fight as hard as I need if it ever becomes relevant.

"But it will not be so because I know the owners and I know that Christian Purslow (CEO) and Johan Lange (sports director) agree.

"We want to build this around the likes of Ollie Watkins. We are happy with him. He is our top scorer this year so for me it is not logical to even listen to speculations about Ollie Watkins. That's a straight no."