Aston Villa face Olympiacos in the first leg of our Europa Conference League semi-final tie on Thursday night, and Unai Emery has delivered our latest team news ahead of the encounter.
There was a double setback last weekend as both Emiliano Martinez and Youri Tielemans were forced off with injuries in our 2-2 draw with Chelsea, albeit the former misses out due to suspension in midweek anyway.
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Nevertheless, with Nicolo Zaniolo and Alex Moreno also recently absent, coupled with our long-term absentees, it has continuously been a difficult task for Emery to find solutions without so many key individuals at his disposal.
That said, the Villa boss has found a way as we not only look to take a lead to Greece for the second leg of a major European semi-final, but we’ll potentially visit Brighton on Sunday with the chance to secure fourth place in the Premier League.
First though, we must secure a positive result at home against Olympiacos, and Emery has provided our latest teams ahead of the clash at Villa Park on Thursday night.
“Emi [Martinez] is out,” he told the media at his pre-match press conference. “Alex Moreno is close to coming back. Zaniolo could be in the squad because he is feeling better. Tielemans is not available for tomorrow, but he is feeling good. The other players are available.”
Asked if Martinez might be available on Sunday, Emery replied: “I don’t know, he is feeling better.”
Although Zaniolo is seemingly the only player who is possibly set to return to the squad on Thursday night, that’s positive news across the board on an important quartet of Villa players.
There was real concern seeing Martinez and Tielemans depart last time out, and although Emery didn’t necessarily provide a timeline on their respective recoveries, it sounds positive in that they haven’t suffered long-term setbacks and are making progress.
The hope will be that we’ll have all four back in group training either ahead of Brighton or next week, with a depleted Villa squad hopefully getting the results we need in our next two games to take two major steps towards achieving our objectives for this season.