Aston Villa midfielder Boubacar Kamara is reportedly set for at least two weeks on the sidelines after suffering a muscle injury.
The 25-year-old lasted just 16 minutes in our 1-1 draw against Ipswich Town this past weekend before being forced to come off, albeit it wasn’t clear at the time what the issue was.
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Unai Emery allayed fears after the game by suggesting that it wasn’t a serious setback, but any time that the Frenchman misses is a major blow for Villa given his influence in the side.
As reported by The Athletic, Kamara is expected to miss the next two weeks at least as he recovers, and so he’ll likely be absent for our upcoming games against Liverpool, Chelsea, Crystal Palace and Cardiff City, and potentially more depending on how his recovery process goes.
Fortunately, Villa welcomed back Tyrone Mings from an injury blow of his own on Saturday while loan signing Axel Disasi made his debut, and so we have options at centre-half again with Kamara having to fill in and deputise there in recent games due to our absentee list.
Further, John McGinn has impressed next to Youri Tielemans in our midfield pivot to suggest that we’ll still be able to establish a strong foundation in the side, but there is no doubt how influential Kamara is in both phases in his preferred role, and we’ll be weaker without him in the next few games.
It’s a crunch period in the campaign for Villa now too as we look to sustain our push to secure European football for next season, while we’ll look to advance in the FA Cup and Champions League to keep our hopes of winning silverware this season alive.
Given our strength in depth, it’s hoped that we have enough to continue to cope with our injury problems with the likes of Pau Torres, Ezri Konsa, Amadou Onana, Ross Barkley and others currently sidelined too, but Emery will be desperate to avoid any further setbacks and start to move towards having a full-strength squad at his disposal again sooner rather than later.
