Update: Marcus Rashford shows true colours in response to wordless Ollie Watkins message News

Ollie Watkins replaced Marcus Rashford for Aston Villa against Southampton and opened the scoring at St Mary’s Stadium barely five minutes after the substitution

Marcus Rashford has responded to a wordless message from Ollie Watkins after Aston Villa won 3-0 away against Southampton in the Premier League on Saturday.

Watkins has only started one of Villa’s last six matches, with the Manchester United loanee starting all but once during that same stretch of matches.

Unai Emery has replaced one with the other in each of their five most recent games, as Rashford is now playing more as a central striker rather than a wide forward.

The change came for their FA Cup quarter-final against Preston North End, in which Rashford scored his first two Villa goals. Then, he scored the opener against Brighton & Hove Albion earlier this month but has not added to his tally since.

Watkins, meanwhile, had not scored in over a month since being responsible for the only goal in a 1-0 win against his former club, Brentford. That changed against the Saints, though, as Watkins broke the deadlock with a 73rd-minute strike within ten minutes of replacing Rashford.

He and Jacob Ramsey were withdrawn midway through the second half, with Donyell Malen being the other Villa player introduced. Watkins, though, made the immediate impact, winning a penalty that Marco Asensio missed before soon after opening the scoring himself.

That set Villa on course to an ultimately comfortable victory. Malen doubled their advantage before John McGinn scored the rebound from another missed Asensio penalty four minutes into added time.

After the match, Watkins posted two photos of him celebrating his goal on Instagram but did not give them a caption. Several of his team-mates, including Boubacar Kamara, Ezri Konsa, Lucas Digne, Ramsey and Youri Tielemans, commented with emojis in response.

Others just liked the post, one of whom was Rashford. As did United striker Joe Hugill, who is spending this season on loan at Carlisle United.

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