Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has confirmed that neither Ross Barkley nor Andres Garcia have made the trip to the USA for our pre-season tour.
In what is a fundamental period in our preparations for the new campaign, the Basque coach would ideally like to have a full squad at his disposal as we put in the hard work and play multiple friendlies to get our fitness and rhythm back.
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Unfortunately for Emery, he’s missing players this week, as per BirminghamLive, as the Villa boss confirmed in his press conference following our 2-2 draw with Eintracht Frankfurt this weekend that both Barkley and Garcia are still in Birmingham after picking up injury setbacks.
It’s unclear how serious the issues are, but they were evidently serious enough to prevent them from travelling with their teammates, and so it’s hoped that they can make a quick recovery and will be ready for the remainder of our schedule when we return from the US.
Given his injury-plagued season last year, it’s bitterly disappointing to hear Barkley has suffered a fresh blow as he needs regular minutes over the summer to try and rediscover his best form in order to have a positive influence in the side when called upon.
As for Garcia, the Spaniard is expected to provide competition for Matty Cash at right-back this season, and so he’ll be frustrated that he hasn’t made the trip in order to try and possibly displace our first-choice option in that position by staking his claim over the course of the summer.
Villa face St. Louis City and Nashville SC before our USA tour concludes next weekend, and so we’re unlikely to see either Barkley or Garcia feature in either of those games now as it doesn’t sound as though the intention is for them to meet up with the rest of the group Stateside.
Instead, we’ll wait to see if they’re able to play some part against Roma, Marseille or Villarreal in the lead up to our opening Premier League game of the season against Newcastle Utd on August 16, as they could certainly do with the minutes to get their conditioning up to where it needs to be, as well as integrating and finding their rhythm in Emery’s system and style of play again in order to make an important impact when called upon.
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