Ollie Watkins responds to England snub with goal as Aston Villa beat West Ham

Ollie Watkins fired the perfect response to his England snub by helping Aston Villa to a 2-0 win over 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 this month’s friendlies with Uruguay and Japan.

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

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

West Ham have resuscitated their season in recent weeks, but their survival hopes took a blow with this loss, where they were second best throughout.

They remain in touching distance of safety, though, following Nottingham Forest’s crunch win at relegation rivals Tottenham, with all three sides – and Leeds – locked in a high-stakes battle.

It was a quick turnaround for Villa, who were in Europa League action less than 72 hours earlier, booking their quarter-final spot with victory against Lille.

But they started with energy and Lucas Digne forced Mads Hermansen into a big early save, tipping a fierce 25-yard effort around a post.

But Hermansen was soon picking the ball out of his net as Villa took the lead in the 15th minute with a brilliant set-piece goal.

Matty Cash played a short free-kick to Jadon Sancho on the corner of the penalty area and he fooled everyone by rolling the ball along the edge to McGinn, who was waiting to curl the ball in the corner.

Villa were full of vigour and could easily have extended their lead.

Amadou Onana headed just wide before Watkins curled an effort wide and then was denied by Hermansen’s legs after a neat one-two in the box.

West Ham just had to hang tough or were in danger of being blown away and they had a reprieve when referee Paul Tierney pointed to the spot after Konstantinos Mavropanos challenged Watkins.

But it was quickly overturned after the defender was shown to have won the ball.

Mavropanos had some more excellent defending to do as he saved a certain goal when clearing Morgan Rogers’ close-range effort off the line.

It was impossible for West Ham to be as ineffective as they were in the first half and they did pick up after the break.

They had half-chances to level as Jarrod Bowen saw a curling shot blocked and then Pablo fired over a loose ball which fell nicely to him.

But Villa shut the door in the 68th minute as Watkins ended a six-game league drought.

Rogers burst forward and his shot was fumbled by Hermansen, allowing Watkins to slide home.

It was a big moment for the striker, whose performance deserved a goal.

Villa were able to see the game out comfortably to strengthen their Champions League ambitions and increase their visitors’ relegation concerns.