Aston Villa face Brighton in the Premier League on Saturday, and Unai Emery has delivered his latest team news ahead of the crunch encounter.
In addition to the disappointment of crashing out of the Carabao Cup in midweek, Jacob Ramsey didn’t feature as Emery revealed that he had picked up a fresh knock, while Leon Bailey was forced off in the first half with a new injury problem.
READ MORE: Return of key Villa trio crucial for Emery after latest disappointment
In turn, it had been hoped that we would recover as many of our injured players as possible for the meeting with Roberto De Zerbi’s side for what promises to be a challenging assignment, but there was mixed news on the injury front as Emery sat down with the media for his pre-match press conference on Friday afternoon.
“We are having some small injuries,” he told reporters, as per BirminghamLive. “Progressively they are coming back, Tim [Iroegbunam] is coming back training with us. Ramsey is still in pain, but we are going to wait until the last moment tomorrow to see if he can go on the bench or not.
“Bailey is out, it’s not a big injury, but he is not ready for tomorrow. Alex Moreno is working progressively, getting better. The other players are going to be ready.”
That’s good news on Iroegbunam, as the talented youngster could have an important role to play as we look to rotate and rest key players moving forward.
It isn’t the first time that Emery has included the 20-year-old in his injury update, and so that would suggest that he considers him to be an important member of the first-team squad, who has a role to play in the coming weeks and months.
However, it’s a blow that Ramsey is unlikely to start this weekend given how influential he can be for us on that left flank, and so it’s only hoped that he will be fit enough for the bench and is considered fit enough to come on if needed.
Meanwhile, it’s an important boost to hear that Bailey’s injury isn’t serious, albeit we’ll be without him on Saturday, while it’s hoped that Moreno continues to make progress despite seemingly suffering a setback with his return being pushed back last week.
With Villa set to take on Zrinjski in the Europa Conference League on Thursday, perhaps the Spaniard will be considered fit enough to feature then, as well as Ramsey, Iroegbunam and Bailey all potentially being in contention too.
