Aston Villa boss Unai Emery is hopeful that centre-half Diego Carlos will return from injury to be in contention to face Newcastle Utd on Boxing Day.
The Brazilian defender missed our win over Manchester City at the weekend, as Emery restored a settled back-four consisting of Matty Cash, Ezri Konsa, Pau Torres and Lucas Digne in our impressive victory.
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Nevertheless, he has preferred to use three centre-halves in his backline at times this season as it gives us a different tactical look and solution, and so it’s important to have all of our options available between now and the New Year as we look to build some momentum.
Speaking to the media at the weekend, Emery revealed that Carlos had sustained a knock during training last week which in turn forced him to miss the game on Saturday, but he was hopeful that he’d be able to recover in time to make the trip to St James’ Park.
It’s a hectic period for the players as there is another quick turnaround after the Boxing Day fixture when we host Brighton on December 30, before Leicester City visit Villa Park five days later, which is then swiftly followed by the start of our FA Cup campaign.
In turn, Emery will likely want to rotate to keep everyone fresh, and although Carlos has had his issues this season and arguably doesn’t form part of our strongest defence, he could be crucial in the coming weeks, particularly if we’re without any of our usual starters at the back.
The expectation is that Villa will go largely unchanged in midweek as we look to follow up an excellent performance and result against Man City, but we do still have the likes of Tyrone Mings, Kosta Nedeljkovic, Ian Maatsen and Lamare Bogarde to come in if Emery wishes to change something.
Despite frustratingly not being able to keep a clean sheet this past weekend, one that our performance deserved given the discipline and organisation we showed for 93 minutes, it was one of the more positive defensive efforts we’ve seen in recent months, and hopefully we can keep that familiarity and consistency going.
