Aston Villa will be without both Matty Cash and Boubacar Kamara against Arsenal on Tuesday after the pair picked up suspensions following our win over Chelsea.
Having secured a 2-1 win at Stamford Bridge on Saturday evening, the overriding feeling at this stage is one of delight after we secured an 11th consecutive win across all competitions.
In turn, thoughts will no doubt soon switch to Tuesday night’s clash at the Emirates with the Gunners, but for now, Villa will be enjoying another comeback win as we showed superb resilience to fight back yet again and sustain our brilliant turnaround since the start of the campaign.
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However, Unai Emery will certainly be the first to switch his focus to Arsenal, and he’ll have to plan without Cash and Kamara after the pair picked up bookings against Chelsea, and will subsequently be suspended for our trip to north London in midweek.
Given the importance of the duo and their excellent form and influence in our winning run, it will no doubt be a major blow to lose them, but such is the quality within the squad, it’s hoped that we’re able to cope without them and continue our run of form in arguably our toughest test to date.
Amadou Onana is likely to come in and replace Kamara, and in turn partner Youri Tielemans in our deeper midfield pivot, with the Belgian international impressing off the bench this weekend after a strong run in the line-up prior to that.
In contrast, things are a little trickier at right-back, but the most likely solution is that Lamare Bogarde will step in and show his versatility to start there.
Much will perhaps depend on Pau Torres, as if he is able to recover from injury in time, that could allow Emery to shift Ezri Konsa across to the right with Pau partnering Victor Lindelof in the middle, while it seems highly unlikely that we’ll throw Andres Garcia into such an important game given his lack of playing time all season thus far.
It does represent a selection headache for Emery, but if there’s a manager capable of formulating a winning gameplan even without key individuals, it’s the Villa boss, who continues to mastermind this incredible winning run that we’re currently on.