Aston Villa boss Unai Emery provided an update on Ezri Konsa and a string of other key injured players after our 0-0 draw vs Man Utd.
Konsa was forced off after just 11 minutes of our goalless draw on Sunday, as he was seen clutching his hamstring before making his way to the bench for the remainder of the encounter.
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Naturally, it’s hoped that it’s a strain and the decision to replace him was a precautionary one rather than the centre-half suffering a serious setback, but while Emery was hopeful that the issue wasn’t bad, he emphasised the importance of now being able to rest and recover over the international break as Konsa will surely not be reporting for duty with England.
“I don’t know, hopefully it’s not a lot. Hopefully, he can rest in the international break,” he is quoted as saying by The Athletic’s Jacob Tanswell. “We can have some days off [in the international break] we can recover our energy and try to push in the next month.”
Meanwhile, he also reported that Emery is hopeful that Amadou Onana, Jacob Ramsey and John McGinn will all return to group training over the international break, thus hopefully making themselves available for our clash with Fulham on October 19.
Both Ramsey and Onana picked up issues during our win over Bayern Munich in the Champions League in midweek, and were subsequently absent this weekend from the matchday squad.
As for McGinn, he was forced off at half-time in our win over Wolves last month with a hamstring setback of his own, and so if we can get that trio back in contention from the end of the month onwards, it will be a huge boost for all concerned.
Coupled with the expected return of Tyrone Mings and Boubacar Kamara as they made their respective comebacks this weekend for our U21s side, the Villa squad will hopefully start to look a lot healthier and stronger, with plenty of competition and depth to help Emery rotate and compete across multiple fronts.
In turn, the international break comes at a good time for us it seems as we can regroup and get back to our usual level having rested with others not at 100 percent either, but the amount of quality, experience and influence that the individuals named above will bring back to the side will make a fundamental difference to both our performance levels and results.
