Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has confirmed that midfield duo Ross Barkley and George Hemmings will be assessed and a late decision will be made on their availability to face Newcastle United.
Villa will be looking to build on our midweek win over Fenerbahce in the Champions League, and although our domestic form has improved either side of the international break, this represents another difficult test away from home.
In turn, ideally we would have as close to a full-strength squad at his disposal as possible, but Amadou Onana, Ian Maatsen and Matteo Ruggeri all remain sidelined for this weekend.
READ MORE: Villa hit Fenerbahce for six in superb Champions League win
WATCH: Jackson, Manzambi & Mbaye lead the Villa charge in 6-0 rout vs Fenerbahce | Talk Villa tactics
Subscribe to Talk Villa+ below for ad-free weekly newsletters, exclusive articles and much more sent directly to you. The TalkVilla podcast is also now available, have a listen, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or YouTube. UTV!
Further, speaking to reporters at his pre-match press conference on Friday, the Villa boss revealed that Barkley and Hemmings would be assessed in the afternoon training session, and so we’ll have to wait and see if they travel with the rest of the squad on Saturday.
“Ross, we’ll see this afternoon how he’s coming along after the match on Wednesday,” he told the media, as per Villa TV.
“He played 85 minutes and was with some pain. We’ll check him this afternoon.
“George Hemmings is close to joining us, maybe joining us this afternoon, we’ll see to decide for tomorrow.”
Barkley was influential in our win on Wednesday night as not only did he score a brace, but he put in a positive performance alongside Boubacar Kamara in our midfield.
Should he fail to get the green light to feature, Joao Gomes will be expected to come back into the Villa XI, and with Kamara showing improvement in his display in midweek, that partnership will hopefully be key in helping us secure a positive result this weekend.
It remains to be seen if Emery is tempted to make any further changes unless it is forced on us due to any fitness or injury issues, but having produced such an impressive team performance during the week to keep our encouraging start to our Champions League campaign going, it could be argued that he should stick with the same line-up as we look to now keep building momentum and put a winning streak together across all competitions.
