Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has revealed that Emiliano Buendia has picked up a knock, while Aaron Ramsey is out for around a fortnight.
Villa will conclude our pre-season tour of the USA on Sunday against Brentford in Washington, following on from a draw with Newcastle Utd in Philadelphia last weekend and a win over Fulham in Orlando on Wednesday night.
Sign up for the new Talk Villa newsletter, a free weekly Villa round-up delivered straight to you!
While we’ll face Lazio and Valencia on our return ahead of our Premier League season opener against Newcastle Utd on August 12, it had been hoped that we would be able to get through the entire trip without suffering any injury setbacks.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be the case as Emery provided an update on Buendia and Ramsey ahead of our encounter with Brentford.
“Aaron Ramsey is injured, it’s not a big injury but he has to stop for two weeks more or less,” he said, as per BirminghamLive. “This morning he didn’t train.
“Emi Buendia as well with a small pain, but we are going to decide tomorrow if he is ready or not to play tomorrow.”
While it doesn’t sound as though Buendia’s knock is that bad if he is set to be assessed ahead of the game to determine if he can be involved or not, it’s a disappointing setback for Ramsey given his desire to push on for a role in the Villa first-team this season.
Off the back of a positive loan stint at Middlesbrough last year, the 20-year-old would have been itching to impress in pre-season, and while he did feature against Walsall and Newcastle and did relatively well, time will tell if that was enough to convince Emery to keep him in the squad, or if he will be loaned out again to continue to gain experience and develop.
It’s hoped that there is a clean bill of health following the conclusion of Sunday’s game and that Buendia recovers quickly from his issue, with Ezri Konsa coming off last time out too with what was ultimately perhaps just cramp.
Building fitness and developing our style of play are crucial elements in pre-season, but avoiding injuries will continue to be the priority with Emery likely to rotate again this weekend to keep everyone fresh, but balancing that with the need to give them all valuable playing time.