Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has delivered our latest team news ahead of our trip to face Arsenal in the Premier League this weekend.
After the disappointment of dropping points to Brentford last weekend, Villa bounced back in Europe in midweek with a crucial win over Lille in the first leg of our Europa Conference League quarter-final tie.
READ MORE: Five key talking points as Villa take crucial advantage into Lille second leg
Now, it’s hoped that we can take that winning form into the league, as we continue our pursuit of a top-four finish this season to secure Champions League qualification.
Emery has had to deal with injury setbacks throughout the campaign thus far, with a number of key players missing significant periods of the year, if not all of it, with the likes of Tyrone Mings, Emiliano Buendia, Boubacar Kamara and Jacob Ramsey all long-term absentees.
The hope is that we’ll have as close to a full strength squad for the remainder of this season, and there was an important double boost in the defensive ranks from Emery on Friday in his pre-Arsenal press conference.
“We will train tomorrow, today we recover with some players, we did compensation work,” he told the media, as per VillaTV.
“Lenglet and Cash are training today with the group.
“We’ll work tomorrow again and see how they will feel to get a decision about the team and the players to be available for Sunday.”
While Clement Lenglet adds depth and cover at centre-half if we need to rest Pau Torres, it’s the return of Matty Cash that is likely to have the bigger impact.
Having made 40 appearances across all competitions so far this season, the Polish international has been crucial for Emery, and particularly now as we continue to see Ezri Konsa struggle to a degree at right-back while he fills that void, getting Cash back will be vital to restoring our defensive balance and solidity.
It remains to be seen if he can return for the Arsenal game as it seems like it might come too soon given his lack of playing time over the last three weeks as he recovered from his hamstring injury, but he’ll be itching to be involved to some extent on Sunday, but if it’s Thursday’s trip to Lille instead, that will be a timely boost too.