Ollie Watkins claims he CAN play with Harry Kane up front for England at the Euros - and believes they could replicate success of the Bayern star's partnership with Son Heung-min at Spurs

Ollie Watkins believes a front two of him and Harry Kane could replicate the success the England captain had with Son Heung-min at Tottenham.

For now, the Aston Villa striker and fellow Kane understudy, Ivan Toney, are being forced to play the role of the opposition frontmen during training sessions.

But Watkins insists he can form a partnership with Kane, even if he won't be telling Gareth Southgate that in person.

'Yes, definitely,' he said when asked if they can play together. 'I would like to play with H, because he drops in deep. He can play the No 10 role and he picks up a lot passes. I feel it would be similar to when he was at Tottenham and picking the balls up and playing it through to Son. But I know we're blessed with a lot of talent in the No 10 role.'

Has that tactic been used in training yet?

'No, we haven't,' said Watkins. 'We've done a lot of tactical stuff, but it's normally me and Ivan pretending to be Serbia! We weren't too bad, actually. Ivan makes a good Mitrovic and I was Vlahovic.'

Watkins may well be minded to tell Southgate of his grand plan for a new-look frontline, given his current role in training. So, will he?

'No, I don't think I would!' he said. 'I feel like he probably has a lot of tough decisions to make, looking at the squad. There are a lot of good players and it's probably a headache for him, so he doesn't need me causing another one! I'm just saying that Harry's a world-class player and I like to play with top players.'

Meanwhile, Watkins - scorer of 27 goals for Villa last season - believes he has been under-appreciated by the media, and was miffed when he was regularly left out of expected Euros squads.

'From my perspective, the media maybe underestimated me,' he said. 'I had a really good year, got the most assists in the league, scored a lot of goals and people still weren't including me in their squads to come to the Euros.

'Everyone has their own opinion, but I don't feel like I have that big of a profile where I'm talked about, or where if I was left out of the squad, people would be like, 'Oh, I can't believe they didn't pick Ollie Watkins'. But I'm delighted I'm here now and I deserve to be here, because I've worked very hard.'