Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has provided our latest team news ahead of facing Club Brugge in our Champions League round-of-16 clash.
The first leg sees us travel to Belgium on Tuesday evening, and we’ll be desperate to return home with a positive result that gives us an excellent chance of advancing in the second leg at Villa Park.
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Given our defeat in the league phase against the same opposition, we’ll be looking for redemption in Bruges, but we’ll certainly have to play a lot better than we did in our last meeting with the Belgian outfit.
In order to do that, it was hoped that we’d receive positive news on the injury front, and Emery has confirmed that we are boosted by the availability of a number of key individuals for the encounter.
“They are not in the squad, Onana and Barkley,” Emery said in his pre-match press conference. “Malen and Garcia are not in the list. The other players are in the squad, Torres, Mings and Matty Cash. Kamara was in the squad Friday and for tomorrow he could start playing minutes.”
While it’s a blow to still be without Amadou Onana and Ross Barkley to bolster our midfield options, getting Pau Torres, Tyrone Mings, Matty Cash and Boubacar Kamara back from their respective injury setbacks is such a vital development to strengthen our backline and to give Emery an alternative to using John McGinn and Youri Tielemans in the pivot without a rest.
It’s a critical point in our season as we look to advance in the Champions League and FA Cup while closing the gap on our rivals in the Premier League standings, and so given the influence that those named above are capable of having on our performances and results, it’s hopefully a pivotal moment in the run-in for us.
Nevertheless, it remains to be seen what Villa starting line-up Emery believes will give us the best possible chance of winning this game, as it’s hoped we can secure a positive result to give ourselves a great chance of making it through to the quarter-finals.
