Aston Villa have suffered a huge injury blow as it’s been reported that Youri Tielemans could miss the rest of the season due to a muscle injury.
The 28-year-old has been a fundamental presence for us throughout the campaign thus far, making 52 appearances across all competitions while contributing five goals and 10 assists.
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Beyond those goal contributions though, his influence has been pivotal in midfield, with his ability to dictate tempo and possession for us, while playing a crucial role in both phases to give us control in games and prise opponents up.
In turn, he was set for a major role in our final three games of the Premier League season as we pursue a top-five finish to secure qualification for the Champions League, but Tielemans may not play any further part.
According to The Athletic’s David Ornstein, the Belgian international has sustained a muscle injury and the fear within the club is that he will not be able to feature again between now and the end of the season.
It’s added that his chances of making a comeback against Manchester United in our final game of the campaign are remote, and so Unai Emery may well have to do without him from this point onwards.
While others must now step up with the likes of Amadou Onana, John McGinn and Ross Barkley likely to step into the void and partner Boubacar Kamara in the deeper midfield pivot, it will be an unenviable task of filling the void left behind by Tielemans, given how instrumental he is to how we play in terms of tempo and rhythm.
Some may well now question the decision to give him such a heavy workload throughout the campaign with all 52 of his appearances coming as a starter, but injuries are unfortunately part of the game and we’ve been dealt two untimely setbacks following on from Marcus Rashford’s hamstring strain last month.
With the quality we’ve got in the squad though and competition for places, we’ll hopefully have enough to get the desired results in our last three games, but it undoubtedly becomes a lot harder trying to do it without arguably our most influential and important player.
