Ahead of their return for pre-season, Aston Villa duo Emiliano Buendia and Jacob Ramsey are currently busy stepping up their fitness in Portugal together.
The bulk of the Villa squad are expected back at Bodymoor Heath next week ahead of our first pre-season game against Walsall on July 17, with some of our new signings arriving at the training ground yesterday to be unveiled.
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While our reinforcements will be key in the upcoming campaign to help us improve and build on what we achieved last season, Unai Emery will also be handed a major boost with the return of key individuals from injury-plagued seasons last year.
Among that group are Buendia and Ramsey, with the latter missing the entire campaign due to a serious knee injury that he suffered on the eve of the season, while his teammate struggled with regular setbacks and saw his involvement severely limited.
Both will be targeting pre-season as a key period in their comeback as they will be desperate to be fully fit and regain their match sharpness ahead of the new year, and so it’s great to see them stepping up their fitness ahead of our upcoming schedule.
As seen in the image below taken from Buendia’s Instagram story, the Villa duo are out in Portugal at ‘The Campus’ training facilities as they look to get into shape for next week, and it’s hoped that they report back raring to go and won’t have any restrictions on their involvement both in training or games.
Along with Tyrone Mings, Alex Moreno and Morgan Rogers, we’ll hope to see them all injury free when they get back to Bodymoor Heath next week, as they will provide crucial competition and depth in the squad as we look to compete across multiple competitions again.
The bulk of our pre-season work will no doubt be done in the USA as part of our tour later this month, but the next fortnight will be crucial for our injured players coming back into the fold, as they build their fitness and confidence ahead of returning to the side and aim to play a key role for Emery again.