Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has provided our latest team news ahead of facing Tottenham in the Premier League on Sunday afternoon.
After a troubling start to the season, Villa recovered prior to the international break as we registered four consecutive wins across all competitions to get ourselves on track.
It’s hoped that the break hasn’t disrupted that positive momentum, particularly with a difficult assignment in north London ahead of us this weekend.
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With that in mind, it was imperative that there was good news on the injury front, and speaking to reporters in his pre-match press conference on Friday afternoon, Emery provided positive updates on Ollie Watkins, Emiliano Buendia and Jadon Sancho, while Tyrone Mings is closing in on a return from injury too.
“Tomorrow we will train again, and normally he [Watkins] will be ready for Sunday,” he told the media, as per VillaTV.
“Both of them [Buendia and Sancho] are training normally the whole week, and they will be available for Sunday if they are training well tomorrow.
“He’s getting better, progressively,” Emery added on Mings. “He’s training this week individually to add to us. Tomorrow we will see how he is.
“The idea tomorrow is for him to train with the team and, after the training session, to decide if he will travel with us or not to London.”
Watkins, who returned early from England duty after picking up a knock, will be of paramount importance given his role leading the line for us in the final third with no other natural replacements for him, albeit we have versatile options in Donyell Malen and Morgan Rogers who can fill that void if needed.
Nevertheless, we’ll certainly be more effective with Watkins as our focal point, while given his recent impressive form, having Buendia in the squad is a crucial boost too after he suffered a concussion in our win over Burnley a fortnight ago.
Sancho had been sidelined by illness and so adding the dynamic he can provide in attack will be key, while Mings gives us another option to compete for a starting spot in the heart of our defence, albeit Pau Torres has been in excellent form since coming back into the side.
For Emery though, having as close to a full-strength squad at his disposal as possible will be a major boost as we compete across the Premier League and Europa League in the coming weeks, and although Amadou Onana and Ross Barkley made their respective comebacks last time out, we’ll hope to see Youri Tielemans return to the fold sooner rather than later too having suffered a setback in his recovery from a calf problem over the break.
this is the start of the Season…… the fist BIG away tie against a genuine contender for ECL..
Looking strongest we have it seems