Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has provided our latest team news as we prepare to face Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the Premier League on Sunday.
Villa are without a win in our last seven games across all competitions as we struggle to get out of our slump in form, but there were encouraging signs in midweek in our draw with Juventus in the Champions League.
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That said, this is an entirely new challenge and a more difficult one at that, and so it’s hoped that we can find consistency and continue to improve in our bid to return to winning ways.
Crucial to that is our ability to have a full strength squad at Emery’s disposal, and there was good news in midweek with Boubacar Kamara and Matty Cash starting against Juve, while Ezri Konsa returned to the bench.
However, both Jacob Ramsey and Amadou Onana remained sidelined, and the Villa boss has provided an update on their current condition ahead of our trip to west London this weekend in his pre-match press conference.
“Ramsey of course is going to be out as well, but Onana, it depends how he’s progressing,” Emery told the media. “Tomorrow, if he can train or not, we will see.”
With Kamara impressing in midweek and hopefully forming a vital partnership with Youri Tielemans in our midfield pivot, the addition of Onana to the ranks gives us strength in depth and competition, and so it will certainly be a boost to have him available again, if he can indeed recover in time.
Conversely, it’s a blow to still be without Ramsey as despite a slow start to the campaign in terms of goal contributions, he is a key part of our attack and is a pivotal option to have to play on the left side of the trident behind Ollie Watkins, and so having to shift across one of John McGinn or Morgan Rogers hasn’t proven to be as effective.
It’s hoped that he isn’t forced to miss much more time out with his injury, with Villa having a quick turnaround as we face Brentford on Wednesday night, before hosting Southampton next weekend. It will be crucial to our hopes of having a successful run going into the festive period if we have a complete group to select from, and so hopefully there is positive news in the coming days.