Villa meet City, which have won only once in the past 11 games, in the early kickoff on Saturday.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Watkins told VillaTV.
“Obviously, a big team coming to Villa Park, we’ve got a really good home record and last year when we played them, it was a great week for us, as a team and as a club.
“Hopefully we can repeat that."
On their form at Villa Park, Watkins also said: “I feel like since the boss has come in, we’ve made it a little bit of a fortress.
“Going 15 games (last season) was amazing, so we know what we’re capable of.
“Hopefully we can do that again.”
He added: “Being at home, you want it to be a bit of a fortress, have that home support, make it a tough place for away teams to go.
“Like I said, we’ve done that in previous seasons.
“But even when you can’t win, just not losing, picking up points."