Aston Villa midfielder Youri Tielemans has reportedly suffered a setback in his recovery from a calf injury.
The 28-year-old has been limited to four appearances so far this season as he’s now missed our last six games across all competitions with the injury that he suffered during our goalless draw with Everton on September 13.
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Now, according to The Athletic, the Belgian international is set to miss another five weeks after suffering a setback, and that will be a massive blow for Unai Emery to continue to be without such an influential figure for an extended period of time.
It had been hoped that the international break would have been an opportunity for Tielemans to complete his recovery and get back into contention against Tottenham on October 19, but that certainly sounds like it won’t be the case as we’ll have to make do without him for a number of weeks.
Given his influence in the heart of the Villa XI with his composure, technical ability, creativity and leadership, Tielemans has firmly established himself as a fundamental presence in the side and was rightly acknowledged with a string of end-of-season awards last year.
While Villa have managed to recover without him in recent weeks, there’s no doubt that we’re a better side with him in it given what he brings in both phases of the game, and so this is undoubtedly a real setback in our bid to extend our winning run, which now stands at four games across all competitions.
It is slightly softened by the fact that both Amadou Onana and Ross Barkley made their respective comebacks from injury in our win over Burnley last weekend, and so Emery will have more options at his disposal in the coming weeks to compete with John McGinn, Boubacar Kamara and Lamare Bogarde, while allowing them to rest too having had an increased workload in recent weeks.
However, Tielemans is the biggest miss of them all and to not have him available for several more weeks will be bitterly disappointing as he’s critical to efficiently and effectively playing our preferred style of football, and it’s just hoped that he doesn’t suffer any further issues between now and then which might risk pushing his return back further.
