Unai Emery has no concerns that Ollie Watkins won't be in the right headspace to face Brentford this weekend after reportedly being the subject of abuse on his last visit to the Gtech Community Stadium.

The striker scored a late winning goal in Villa's 2-1 win against Brentford last year and proceeded to celebrate in front one opposition supporter.

It was claimed by Watkins after full-time that he had been the victim of repeated verbal abuse from the specific supporter, but his celebrations sparked an on-field melee and Ezri Konsa and Saman Ghoddos were shown yellow cards.

Brentford took the lead in the match, but were reduced to 10 men after Ben Mee's reckless challenge in the 71st minute.

With Villa in the lead, Emi Martinez got himself in trouble when he tried to pick Neal Maupay off the floor. That then resulted in another confrontation, which saw Boubacar Kamara sent off and receive a three-match ban.

After the game, Villa released this statement on X: "Aston Villa FC wants to express its support for Ollie Watkins and, with the utmost respect for the big majority of Brentford fans and for the club, we ask the authorities to investigate this incident to find this individual. Zero tolerance to abuse in football."

Watkins said: "I have nothing but respect for the Brentford fans, I love the club, but there was one individual who was abusing me all game. Personal abuse that footballers should not need to deal with. You can have banter, but this wasn't banter, hence my celebration."

Thomas Frank, who worked with Watkins during his time at Brentford, also described him as "a top person of top integrity."

Ahead of Villa's clash with the Bees, Emery was asked if Watkins will be able to block out any negative reaction from home supporters on Saturday.

"I think you have to be intelligent and Ollie is an intelligent man," the Villa manager said. "We are going to face the match competing, of course knowing the supporters of Brentford, they are going to try to support their team.

"Maybe we had to accept some words aimed at us, but we are professional, we are playing at a high level. We were playing in Brugge on Tuesday, the supporters of them were supporting their team and saying things against us!

"It's normal in football. Of course, respect is very important, but in my career as a coach, I always accept to play with our supporters, to play with the opponent's supporters and using sometimes words that are not really respectful to us, but not really taking moments like that as something personal.

"I think it's because they are supporting their team, they are supporting their players, they are supporting their coaches and we had to accept it."

Emery added: "Ollie wants to score against Brugge, against Brentford, against Brugge again on Wednesday, against Brighton and in the FA Cup. I think he's a striker who's always hungry to get more.

"Scoring goals, assists, working for the team. He's trying to get his objectives through the team, playing in Europe, playing in the Conference, in the Champions League, taking his numbers as well.

"I think for us it's very important and of course we are going to protect him and we are going to try to play, focusing on our match, focusing on our supporters, focusing on trying to forget the environment or the atmosphere we can face in each match, playing away."