Aston Villa duo Emiliano Martinez and Leon Bailey missed our final game of the season at Crystal Palace, and Unai Emery has revealed why.
Villa were already without a whole host of key players due to injury, with Matty Cash, Alex Moreno, Tyrone Mings, Boubacar Kamara, Youri Tielemans, Jacob Ramsey, Nicolo Zaniolo, Emiliano Buendia and Morgan Rogers all ruled out.
READ MORE: What Unai Emery said in assessment of Villa’s defeat vs Crystal Palace
However, we were weakened further on Sunday at Selhurst Park, as neither Martinez nor Bailey made the trip with the rest of the squad, and we ultimately went on to fall to a 5-0 defeat to Palace.
Given our horrendous injury luck this season, the expectation was always that the duo had probably suffered setbacks in some shape or form, and that proved to be correct when Emery discussed their absence after the game.
As per the Athletic’s Jacob Tanswell, Bailey missed out due to being ill, although the Jamaican international has had heavy strapping on his knee for several weeks now too, while Martinez was unable to feature due to the hamstring injury that recently sidelined him.
Although the Argentine shot-stopper was able to return to face Liverpool last week, it was seemingly decided that it wasn’t worth the risk of playing him on Sunday and potentially aggravating the problem again.
In turn, along with the rest of the squad, they will now get a deserved and well-earned rest in the coming weeks after what has been a gruelling season, and although many will be involved on international duty this summer, they will hopefully get a period of time to recharge and regroup as we have another massive campaign ahead of us.
Emery and the club will undoubtedly be hard at work now to recruit reinforcements to help us reach the next level and become increasingly competitive, but just getting our squad healthy and fully fit will be a huge boost in itself when you read through those names above again who were absent in our final game of the season, and who have missed a significant part of the year too.
