Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has provided the latest injury news ahead of our crunch encounter with Brighton on Sunday.
Villa know a win this weekend in our final Premier League game of the season will make a place in the Europa Conference League next year a certainty, and so it’s imperative that we finish the campaign positively.
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Ideally, Emery would have a fully-fit squad at his disposal to give us the best possible chance of securing all three points, but the Villa boss confirmed bad news on Alex Moreno in his pre-match press conference on Friday, after the left-back suffered a hamstring injury against Liverpool last weekend.
Having looked in real discomfort and requiring assistance as he made his way off the pitch at Anfield, the early signs were concerning, and unfortunately the Spaniard will now spend his summer doing rehabilitation work and trying to resume full training before the new season gets underway.
“Diego [Carlos], he trained today and if he’s ready tomorrow I think he’ll be available,” Emery told the media, as per VillaTV. “We will be without Alex Moreno. He had surgery last week on his hamstring. We are going to follow it; he’s going to be out for two to three months, perhaps back early August, OK, so it’s two or three months.
“Coutinho is out as well. Jed Steer as well. There are other players that we have some doubt because some players have some pain. But now, we won’t have Alex Moreno, Jed Steer and Coutinho. But there could be some doubts tomorrow [at training] with other players but they should be OK.”
Time will tell who else is absent as Emery didn’t give much else away in terms of names, but it’s hoped that we have as close to a strongest XI available as possible, and with the added bonus that Carlos could return to the bench.
With either Lucas Digne or Ashley Young perhaps stepping in and deputising for Moreno this weekend, his focus now will be on his recovery over the summer, and ideally he’ll have time to get back up to full speed before the new campaign starts.
Given how positive an impression he has made since he arrived in January, Moreno has a key role to play for Emery moving forward, but the primary focus for us in the more immediate future is on those who are available on Sunday, and getting the result we need to secure a return of European football.
