Aston Villa face Fulham in the Premier League on Sunday, and Unai Emery has provided our latest team news for the encounter.
Villa secured a much-needed win in midweek as we defeated Bologna to get our Europa League campaign off to a positive start, but the challenge now is to back that up with another three points in the league to start to build some confidence and momentum again.
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Having struggled heavily through the opening weeks of the season, Villa are still not quite clicking and further improvement in our performance levels is certainly still needed, and it’s hoped that we see that on the pitch against Fulham this weekend.
Ideally, Emery would have a full-strength squad to select from to give him alternative tactical solutions and opportunities to freshen things up and rest key individuals, but with ongoing absentees, he’s undoubtedly limited in specific areas.
Speaking to the media at his pre-match press conference on Friday, the Villa boss confirmed that Youri Tielemans, Amadou Onana and Ross Barkley remain sidelined by injury, but there was optimism that Emiliano Martinez will be able to recover from the muscle injury that ruled him out against Bologna.
“It’s difficult today because we played yesterday, we trained this morning and tomorrow we’ll train again,” he told the media, as per VillaTV. “We’ll see how the players who played yesterday, how they are.
“Some players weren’t available yesterday, especially Emi Martínez. We’ll see tomorrow how he is for Sunday.
“Youri Tielemans, Amadou Onana and Ross Barkley are not available.
“Other players, we’ll see tomorrow. It’s a small injury for Emi Martínez and hopefully he’ll be available for Sunday.”
There was good news on Thursday night with Andres Garcia returning to the matchday squad, which will hopefully offer relief to Matty Cash at some point if his heavy workload starts to catch up with him, but it’s likely to be an ongoing heavier burden for John McGinn and Boubacar Kamara in the deeper midfield pivot given our other absentees.
Tielemans is unquestionably the biggest loss given his influence on our play, and Onana’s presence can be useful to give us a different dynamic in midfield with his physicality and athleticism to impose himself on the opposition.
As for Barkley, his ongoing absence is a real concern as we can’t afford to carry players this season, but even though he has had a limited impact for some time now, it still robs us of an important option to have to either rotate or give ourselves a different approach in midfield with his technical ability and creativity.
Emery has a deep squad to choose from still, and it’s hoped that he gets his decisions right, while those selected in the starting line-up against Fulham are able to do their job and set us on our way to three crucial points.
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