Aston Villa boss Dean Smith hopes to pair Ollie Watkins and Danny Ings together against Chelsea this weekend.

The Birmingham Mail says Watkins is in contention to start against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge this weekend after returning from injury against Brentford last time out.

The attacker faced his former club for the first time when Villa hosted the Bees at Villa Park as he came on as a second half substitute.

Watkins picked up an injury in Villa's final pre-season friendly against Italian side Salernitana and missed the first two games of the season.

The injury blow meant that Villa's summer signing Ings hasn't yet been able to form any sort of partnership or build a relationship with Watkins - the club's top scorer in the league and across all competitions last term.

Watkins scored 14 goals in his maiden top-flight campaign and while only Jamie Vardy and Harry Kane have scored more Premier League goals than Ings since the start of the 2019/20 season, Smith's knows that he has real firepower at the top of the pitch.