Aston Villa travel to face Bournemouth in the Premier League on Saturday, and Unai Emery has named his starting line-up for the encounter.
Villa will be looking to bounce back after our defeat to Brentford at home last weekend, with the chasing pack now closing the gap on us in the battle for Champions League qualification.
Emery confirmed in his pre-match press conference on Friday that Amadou Onana and Ollie Watkins were both fit enough to return to the squad, and that was undoubtedly a major boost given the importance of that duo, particularly Onana with Boubacar Kamara, Youri Tielemans and John McGinn all ruled out due to injury.
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Neither Alysson nor Andres Garcia were set to be available for selection either, but the timely return of Ross Barkley from his own injury woes was a crucial boost this past week too.
As per the club’s post below, Villa make four changes to the side that started last time out with Tyrone Mings, Lucas Digne, Onana and Watkins coming in to replace Pau Torres, Ian Maatsen, Lamare Bogarde and Tammy Abraham.
That in turn will hopefully give us a solid defensive base to give out frontmen the chance to go on and win the game, and we have good options on the bench to change things if required, with the likes of Leon Bailey and Tammy Abraham giving us additional firepower.
There is no Harvey Elliott in the squad though as doubts over his future continue after no resolution was found with Liverpool ahead of the January transfer window deadline, and so it remains to be seen when his next involvement with the first-team squad will come.
Today’s starting XI to face the Cherries ✊ #BOUAVL pic.twitter.com/nDzZbRWbBR
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) February 7, 2026