Five Aston Villa players run the risk of being suspended for a potential Europa League semi-final first leg
Aston Villa manager Unai Emery
Aston Villa manager Unai Emery(Image: Getty Images)
View Image
Unai Emery insists he will field his "best players" against Bologna despite the risk of five players being suspended for a potential Europa League semi-final first leg.
Morgan Rogers, John McGinn, Lucas Digne, Matty Cash and Victor Lindelof have all collected two yellow cards in the club’s European campaign so far.
One more booking for any of those players would result in a one-match suspension for the semi-final first leg, should Villa progress to that stage.
FC Porto or Nottingham Forest would await Villa, who hold a two-goal lead over Bologna after a 3–1 win in Italy last week.
Asked if the risk of suspensions will play any part in his thinking for Thursday night, Emery said: “If I am answering you I make a mistake. We play tomorrow.
“We are not thinking about the semi-final, we think about tomorrow and we are going to play the best players tomorrow.”
Speaking of the tie, Emery said: “We are in the quarter final second leg. We had a good result, but after analysing them and watching their experience they deserve this respect.
“When they played against Roma, we could think that Roma were favourites. They beat one of the favourites. How they compete in their idea and push in all of the matches, it makes us respectful.
“We must play the second leg analysing what we did there and understanding that the next game is at Villa Park. They are going to play the same match, so intense and aggressive, getting duels man to man, and attacking us.
“They are defending us by attacking us. We have a very good team and if we get our strong structure we can feel that we are competing and performing to get good results. When the referee starts the match, we are going to be focused 100 per cent. We will fight more here than we did there.”
Content Image
Content Image