Aston Villa travel to face Feyenoord in the Europa League on Thursday night, and here’s how Unai Emery’s starting line-up could look for the clash.
The Villa boss faces some important decisions with Burnley in the Premier League ahead on Sunday prior to the international break, and so it will be fascinating to see how he rotates and who he prefers for this encounter.
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With the expectation that this will be a difficult challenge given the quality that Feyenoord possess, we’ll need to be at our best to get a positive result, as we’ll no doubt harbour hopes of continuing our improved form over the past week, having picked up crucial wins over Bologna and Fulham respectively.
It’s hoped that our performance against the latter was a sign that we’re starting to rediscover our spark, but it’s vital that we continue to follow up positive results and string them together in order to escape from our slump entirely.
Five ruled out, but Villa XI remains strong
Speaking to the media at his pre-match press conference on Wednesday, Emery confirmed that Amadou Onana, Youri Tielemans, Jadon Sancho, Andres Garcia and Tyrone Mings will play no part in Rotterdam, and so that limits his options and ability to rotate.
Nevertheless, such is the strength in depth in this current Villa squad, we still have plenty of quality and experience to head to the Netherlands with confidence, and there could be a few changes to the side that won on Sunday.
Emiliano Martinez will perhaps continue between the posts despite Marco Bizot impressing in his absence against Bologna last week, as with the magnitude of the game and event itself, we’ll surely go with as close to a full-strength starting line-up as possible.
With no Garcia available to offer him the chance of a rest, Matty Cash is likely to continue at right-back, with Ezri Konsa, Pau Torres and Lucas Digne possibly completing the backline.
Emery has options here as Victor Lindelof could start at centre-half and thus push Konsa across to right-back, or Lamare Bogarde’s versatility could be useful with the Dutch youngster asked to play either at right-back or centre-back depending on which gives us the best balance and defensive solidity.
In turn, there’s different paths to go in defence, but away from road looking to keep a clean sheet, Digne over Ian Maatsen at left-back seems a likely choice.
Having started on the bench on Sunday, Boubacar Kamara should come back into the side to partner John McGinn in our midfield pivot, while Donyell Malen, Morgan Rogers and Emiliano Buendia could provide Ollie Watkins with service and support in the final third.
Again, it gets tricky trying to predict Emery’s plans and the XI that he feels will give us the best balance, structure and quality to defeat Feyenoord, as Harvey Elliott and Evann Guessand will come into contention too.
However, with Malen, and particularly Rogers, desperately looking for some form and to make a decisive impact in the final third, they’ll likely get the nod to try to break out of their slump, while Buendia and Watkins will conversely want to build on their important impacts this past weekend.
It’s hoped that Emery is able to recover some players for the weekend as we are missing some influential figures, but he’ll be confident in those at his disposal in midweek, while we could see some of our talented youngsters named on the bench to give them a chance to gain valuable experience in Europe.
Predicted Aston Villa XI vs Feyenoord: Martinez; Cash, Konsa, Pau, Digne; Kamara, McGinn; Malen, Rogers, Buendia; Watkins.
Thoughts on the possible Villa XI above? What changes would you make?
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