Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has provided more insight on Jacob Ramsey and Alex Moreno, after the pair travelled with the squad for our encounter with Legia Warsaw.
Villa get our Europa Conference League campaign underway on Thursday evening in the Polish capital, and the club shared a video of the squad boarding the plane on Wednesday, which showed the duo joining their teammates for the trip.
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Neither have featured yet this season as they’ve been recovering from injury setbacks, with Moreno undergoing hamstring surgery back in May while Ramsey suffered a broken metatarsal over the summer.
While the Spaniard was pictured back in group training over the recent international break, Ramsey followed suit earlier this week, and so it’s a huge boost for Villa to have the influential duo closing in on making their respective comebacks.
However, given the lengthy layoffs that they’ve had, it’s important that we don’t rush them back and gradually ease them back in as they look to build their match fitness and sharpness.
In turn, although it’s great to see them travel with the squad, the expectation is that they won’t be involved this week beyond the bench, and Emery has revealed that he will exercise caution when managing their upcoming workload.
“They are working with the team but we will decide tomorrow,” Emery said, as per The Athletic. “They are here with us, but they need to take confidence again, and for us, those players are very important for the next matches and for the season.
“We have to take care with them playing minutes and trying to fix as well, playing minutes with us.”
Villa face Chelsea on Sunday before switching our attention to the Carabao Cup against Everton next Wednesday, and the latter outing is arguably the perfect opportunity for both Moreno and Ramsey to be involved.
Not only does it give them another week of training, but it’s arguably an ideal fixture to gradually integrate them back into the side, and it will in turn hopefully set them up to increase their minutes in the games that follow.
Time will tell what Emery and his coaching staff decide, but he’ll undoubtedly make the right decision for all concerned, and we’ll hopefully be boosted by the return of two fundamental players sooner rather than later.
