The 29-year-old was omitted by Thomas Tuchel for this month’s World Cup qualifiers with the Three Lions boss revealing he is playing through “discomfort” and would benefit from a break.
Watkins, who has scored just once in 15 appearances for Villa this season, suffered a knee injury shortly after netting for England against Wales last month.
He has since been involved in all five of Villa’s matches since the last international break, coming off the bench in Thursday’s 2-0 win over Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Speaking on Friday at a press conference, Emery made expressed confidence Watkins would soon be back to his best.
“He’s a fighter. In all his career he showed us that,” said Emery. “He overcame a lot of situations in his career from being a fighter.
“Now, keep moving forward. He has to focus with us again, recovering his good form and getting confidence.
“My message to him, yesterday, before the match when we had a meeting, I told him: ‘I am so, so happy with you’.
“You are our striker, you are being consistent all your career. From when I arrived here, you showed me your capacity be resilient, in all the moments we need.
“Now, I know you are going to recover and get your performance through being consistent like you are, through fighting like you did and focusing with us.”
Speaking earlier on Friday, Tuchel claimed Watkins’ has been playing through the pain barrier.
He said: “We understood and we could observe when we watched Ollie closely he is playing through discomfort.
“It simply did not make much sense to bring him into camp in this condition. We opted to give him this break to get treatment and be back in full physical capacity and best shape to fight for a place again in March.”