Aston Villa host Brighton in the Premier League on Wednesday night and Unai Emery has delivered our latest team news for the encounter.
Villa held Bournemouth to a 1-1 draw last weekend, and although it was a decent point considering the disappointing performance that we produced, particularly in the second half, that’s now just one win in our last five league outings.
In turn, that’s allowed the chasing pack to close the gap on us in the battle for Champions League qualification, and so it’s imperative that we get back to winning ways in midweek.
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Boubacar Kamara misses out of course, as he has been ruled out for the remainder of the season due to a knee injury.
Meanwhile, both John McGinn and Youri TIelemans also remain sidelined, as does Andres Garcia.
However, with Douglas Luiz and Tammy Abraham bolstering our squad last month, coupled with the return of Amadou Onana last time out and with Ross Barkley pushing for a bigger role, we’ve hopefully got enough to manage until we get key individuals back.
Emery didn’t give much away in his pre-match press conference on Tuesday, but he didn’t reveal any fresh injury setbacks at this stage which is undoubtedly a big boost.
“As a coach, I have to adapt in everything, but we have enough players, and we have other centre-midfielders,” he told the media, as per VillaTV.
“We must work, and of course, I believe in them, but someone like (Amadou) Onana needs to be consistent, because he had some small injuries, and of course now, we are trying to keep him playing a lot of matches, how we can manage his progress and his availability each match, and, of course, he’s very important for us.
“Ross Barkley is coming back after being injured, and he’s ready – another very important player, and of course, we have Douglas Luiz, and his adaptation again is being good.
“He played a good match on Saturday in Bournemouth, and we are not missing other players because we have enough players to play in the performance we had.
“Every player, the injured players, and the players (who) are available, they are very important, and they must feel our confidence, they must feel how we can protect them in our structure tactically, to feel comfortable, to feel confident, to play the same way we want.
“And (they) need some adaptation after some players injured, like Ross Barkley, after he’s coming back, Douglas Luiz, but tomorrow they are, those players, ready to play and to perform like we need.”
Changes are expected in midweek, with the likes of Pau Torres and Ian Maatsen surely coming back into the side as we look to get on the front foot at home, but it’s hoped that whoever gets the nod, is able to help us secure all three points and get us back on the right track.
Our FA Cup clash with Newcastle United follows this weekend, and so we’ll hopefully start to build some momentum again and ensure that we’re right in the race across multiple fronts heading into the final months of the campaign.