Aston Villa midfielder Youri Tielemans has returned to group training ahead of our clash with West Ham United this weekend.
The 28-year-old has been sidelined due to injury since our win over Newcastle United on January 25, and given how influential and important he is to the team, his presence has been sorely missed.
Coupled with setbacks for Boubacar Kamara and John McGinn, we’ve undoubtedly suffered through a slump in the past two months without key figures, but although Kamara’s season is over, it is a huge boost to now have both McGinn and Tielemans return to the fold.
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Speaking at his pre-match press conference on Friday, Unai Emery confirmed that Tielemans has now rejoined his teammates in group training and he hasn’t yet ruled out the possibility of the Belgian international being involved this weekend.
Time will tell if the West Ham game comes too soon for him with the international break to follow, but the mere fact that Tielemans is back in contention is a significant boost for all concerned.
“He has started to train with us, individually he did one progression until today,” Emery told reporters, as per VillaTV.
“Today is the first time he trained with us and he’s feeling good.
“He’s important, I don’t know if he’s going to be in the squad for Sunday.
“In case he is, try to progressively get him again with us.”
Villa received another injury boost in midweek in our win over Lille in the Europa League, with Matty Cash coming off the bench to get valuable minutes after a setback of his own recently.
In turn, Villa are seemingly getting healthy at a critical stage in the season, and combined with our progression in Europe, it’s hoped that spirits, confidence and belief are building and growing amongst the squad as we look to now ensure that this is a successful campaign on two fronts.
Tielemans will naturally need time to get back up to speed and to rediscover his match fitness and sharpness, but his technical quality and intelligence in midfield has been such a loss for us since he was injured, and so it’s a delight to see him back.
