Aston Villa boss Dean Smith has offered injury updates on Ollie Watkins, Leon Bailey, Morgan Sanson and others ahead of our game with Brentford.
Villa will look to make it three consecutive wins in all competitions on Saturday, having seen off Newcastle Utd and Barrow in the Premier League and Carabao Cup respectively in our last two outings.
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It promises to be a difficult game as the visitors have started the season well and have plenty of quality in their side, and so ideally, Villa and Smith would have had a fully-fit squad to choose from.
Unfortunately, that won’t be the case this weekend as Smith confirmed that Leon Bailey, Bertrand Traore, Morgan Sanson and Keinan Davis are still ruled out due to injury, as per the club’s official Twitter account.
He added that Watkins will train on Friday and it’s hoped that if he comes through unscathed, he will be available on Saturday as he looks to make his comeback after missing the last two games with a knock to his knee.
Given how important he was for us last season and how pivotal his influence is on our overall play both on and off the ball, it’s hoped that he is given the green light to feature.
While Danny Ings has two goals in two league games to start life at Villa, he will certainly benefit from the return of Watkins too, and so time will tell if the former Brentford man is back to face his old side.
It’s a blow to be without a number of key players again this weekend, but with the international break to follow, the expectation is that they will recover over that period and be ready to feature against Chelsea.
Further, given the lack of playing time that they’ve all had over the last few weeks, it would also come as no surprise if Villa tried to arrange a friendly over the break to help them get up to speed and get minutes in their legs.