Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has provided an injury update on Youri Tielemans, while confirming the reason for Victor Lindelof’s absence against Brentford.
Villa exited the Carabao Cup on Tuesday night after a defeat to the Bees on penalties, as our miserable start to the season continues having yet to win a game across two competitions and after five games.
READ MORE: Villa player ratings vs Brentford: Miserable start to season continues after cup exit
Tielemans was absent in midweek after a calf issue forced him to be replaced at half-time in our draw at Everton last weekend, and there has been concern over the length of his possible spell on the sidelines given how influential and important he is in the side.
Fortunately, it sounds as though it isn’t a serious concern, as The Athletic’s Jacob Tanswell reports that Emery told the media in his post-match press conference that the Belgian international is likely to be ruled out for between one or two weeks.
That’s a crucial boost for Villa as we’ll no doubt miss Tielemans while he’s unavailable, and particularly with Ross Barkley, Amadou Onana and Boubacar Kamara suffering injury setbacks of their own in recent weeks, it leaves us short of key options in our deeper midfield pivot, but the situation could certainly have been worse than being without him for a fortnight.
Kamara returned in the latter stages at Brentford which was a vital development, while Onana is expected to be closing in on his comeback in the coming weeks, and so hopefully we’ll start moving toward having a full-strength squad at Emery’s disposal again soon.
Meanwhile, after making his Villa debut last weekend, some had expected that Lindelof might make his first start for the club in our Cup outing in midweek, but the Swedish stalwart was missing from the squad entirely as Emery confirmed after the game that he had picked up a small injury.
It’s unclear at this stage if it will force him to miss this weekend’s trip to Sunderland and our Europa League opener against Bologna in just over a week’s time, but we could certainly do with having another experienced option in central defence available in case we have issues with our first-choice individuals, while this would arguably have been an ideal opportunity to rest Ezri Konsa too.
Given our form to start the campaign, it’s a concerning time for Villa as we struggle to score goals and win games, and the pressure is certainly building especially given the level of our performances.
While there has been some improvement over the last two outings, it’s hardly difficult to show it given how bad we were in the opening three games, and ultimately having crashed out of the Carabao Cup already, it still isn’t good enough.
In turn, Emery will need to find solutions and the players must step up and deliver, as we’ve fallen well short of the standard and level set over the past two seasons, and there are some worrying signs in our displays so far.
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