Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has provided our latest team news ahead of our Premier League clash vs Arsenal this weekend.
Villa prepare for Saturday’s encounter at home against the Gunners looking to continue our winning form and make it seven consecutive victories across all competitions.
Further, a win would cut the gap to the current league leaders to three points, while hopefully also continuing to put more distance between ourselves and the chasing pack in the race for the Champions League qualification spots this season.
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Given they have been the best team of the season thus far, which is reflected in their position at the summit of the standings, it will be a difficult assignment against Mikel Arteta’s side, who boast plenty of quality throughout their squad.
However, Villa have shown in our recovery after a poor start to the season that we can beat any team if we’re in top form ourselves, and hopefully we’re able to follow up recent wins against the likes Manchester City and Tottenham and pick up another impressive three points.
Ideally for Emery, he would have as close to a fully fit squad as possible, but with long-term absentees Tyrone Mings and Ross Barkley remaining sidelined, there is still a concern that Emiliano Martinez might join them after suffering a back injury in the warm-up prior to our win over Brighton in midweek.
“We will train this afternoon, he [Martinez] didn’t train yesterday, but it’s very important for him, how he is passing the hours feeling better,” said the Villa boss, as per VillaTV.
“Until the last moment, I don’t know if he’s going to be available or not for tomorrow.”
While Marco Bizot showed his class in helping us secure that 4-3 win over Brighton on Wednesday night despite being called up late, Martinez remains our first-choice goalkeeper for a reason, and so to have his leadership and qualities between the posts in the starting XI would be a huge boost.
Nevertheless, his Dutch teammate has shown on multiple occasions already this season that he is ready to step up when needed, and hopefully whoever starts in goal on Saturday will help give us a solid defensive foundation on which we can go on and win the clash.
