Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has confirmed that Alex Moreno has suffered a calf injury, which will sideline him for between two to three weeks.
The 30-year-old has already experienced a disrupted campaign, having been limited to 28 appearances across all competitions due to a string of injury issues.
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Frustratingly for him, he will play no part in Lille on Thursday as we prepare for the second leg of our Europa Conference League quarter-final tie, as Emery revealed in his pre-match press conference that the Spanish full-back has suffered a calf injury that will rule him out.
“After Sunday, we are adding Douglas Luiz into the squad,” Emery told the media, as per VillaTV.
“Álex Moreno has a small injury in his calf and he’s going to be out. He’s not available for tomorrow and maybe it will be two or three weeks.”
With that timeline in mind, Moreno could now miss games against Lille, Bournemouth, Chelsea and Brighton, with the hope that he doesn’t suffer any setbacks in his recovery that will prolong his absence.
That is a real blow given our need to have as close to a fully-fit squad available as possible as we enter a crunch final stretch of our season, and it certainly puts pressure and responsibility on the shoulders of Lucas Digne, with the Frenchman now expected to feature heavily in our upcoming games.
Emery will be wary of giving Digne too heavy a workload though as the last thing we can afford is for him to suffer an injury too with little to no cover behind him now in terms of a natural fit, but it’s hoped that Moreno can still recover in time to play some part in our final few games of the year.
