Aston Villa face Manchester City in the early Premier League kickoff on Saturday, and Unai Emery has named his starting line-up for the encounter.
Villa make one change to the side that suffered defeat at Nottingham Forest last weekend, with Amadou Onana coming in to replace Diego Carlos, and so there is a subsequent reshuffle in our set-up.
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The Belgian midfielder will partner Boubacar Kamara in our deeper midfield pivot, and that in turn will likely see Youri Tielemans deployed in a more advanced role in the final third.
There’s good news on the bench for Villa too, with Tyrone Mings and Leon Bailey recovering from illness and injury respectively to make the matchday squad. Having dropped out of the starting XI, there is no place for Carlos even on the bench and so it remains to be seen if that is injury related or not.
As per the club’s post below, Emiliano Martinez continues in goal, with Matty Cash dropping into the back four after playing a more advanced role in recent games, with Ezri Konsa, Pau Torres and Lucas Digne completing our defence.
Onana and Kamara will shield the backline in midfield, while John McGinn and Morgan Rogers will form our attacking trident with Tielemans behind Jhon Duran, who keeps his place ahead of Ollie Watkins.
It’s a strong Villa line-up and bench, and it will take a big performance from all involved as we try to repeat our win over City in this fixture last season.
Putting aside their struggles this season and poor form, they remain one of the toughest challenges on the schedule, and so it’s hoped Villa can bounce back from last weekend and kick-start our Christmas schedule with three big points to get ourselves back on track and full of confidence.
Today’s starting lineup 🤛 #AVLMCI pic.twitter.com/eNJBos85r9
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) December 21, 2024