Aston Villa have confirmed our squad for our pre-season tour in the USA, with Unai Emery set to be without a trio of key players for the trip.
The group travelled Stateside earlier this week as preparation is well underway ahead of our first game of the tour against Columbus Crew on Sunday morning.
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While the training sessions will have undoubtedly continued to help build fitness and sharpness, there’s excitement and intrigue over what we’ll see in our three games during the tour, with Emery expected to rotate heavily and give minutes to everyone as they look to stake a claim in the starting XI.
As per the club’s tweet below, our squad for the USA pre-season tour has now been confirmed, albeit we knew who had travelled already through the social media posts over the past few days, but it’s good to get confirmation as to who will be in action and likely to get playing time.
There are a couple of important boosts as both Emiliano Buendia and Jacob Ramsey look set to get valuable minutes as they edge closer to a return after injury, but Tyrone Mings and Boubacar Kamara will need longer as neither have travelled with their teammates.
Further, Emiliano Martinez, Ezri Konsa and Ollie Watkins are seemingly set to join up with the group when we return to England, and they’ll still have to time to sharpen up as we’ll face Athletic Bilbao and Borussia Dortmund before our Premier League season opener next month.
Interestingly though, it doesn’t appear as though Jhon Duran will feature for us again, unless there is a surprise in terms of his future amid ongoing and intense speculation over a move to West Ham Utd.
Although the 20-year-old was on international duty with Colombia at the Copa America this summer, which in turn would warrant an extended break, it sounds as though his future lies elsewhere, and Villa may not opt to draft him back into the squad this summer until his future is sorted out.
Nevertheless, there’s a lot to look forward to against Columbus, RB Leipzig and Club America, and it’s hoped that we firstly see the squad come through unscathed with no new injury concerns, and on top of that, some competitive games to help us reach our maximum level ahead of the new campaign.
GK: Joe Gauci, Robin Olsen, Oliwier Zych, James Wright
DF: Matty Cash, Diego Carlos, Lucas Digne, Pau Torres, Alex Moreno, Kosta Nedeljkovic, Ian Maatsen, Kaine Kesler-Hayden, Sil Swinkels, Josh Feeney
MF: Ross Barkley, John McGinn, Youri Tielemans, Emiliano Buendia, Jaden Philogene, Samuel Iling-Junior, Enzo Barrenechea, Amadou Onana, Morgan Rogers, Leon Bailey, Leander Dendoncker, Jacob Ramsey, Lamare Bogarde
FW: Lewis Dobbin, Cameron Archer
Our squad for the states. 🇺🇸#VillaInTheUSA pic.twitter.com/LsnVTUDViL
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) July 26, 2024
What about Louie Barry ?
Not seen anything definitive as of yet but presume must have either picked up an injury or is set to be loaned out/leave.