Aston Villa face Spartak Trnava in our latest pre-season friendly on Saturday, and Unai Emery has named a number of our summer signings in the starting line-up.
Villa secured a 3-0 win over Walsall in midweek as we got our preparations for the new campaign underway, and with our USA tour ahead, we’ve travelled to Slovakia for another run-out this weekend.
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The expectation is that Emery will hand minutes out to everyone again as he looks to get his entire squad up to speed and build their match fitness, and so he’s named a strong squad once again.
Joe Gauci starts in between the posts as he looks to establish himself as first-choice in the depth chart behind Emiliano Martinez for the new season, while Kosta Nedeljkovic, Diego Carlos, Sil Swinkels and Lucas Digne make up our defence.
In midfield, Enzo Barrenechea and Leander Dendoncker start in the deeper pivot roles, with Leon Bailey, Louie Barry and Samuel Iling-Junior tasked with supporting Lewis Dobbin in the final third.
It remains to be seen how we set up in terms of personnel and positions, but it’s great to see Nedeljkovic and Barrenechea start in particular after the pair impressed at Walsall last time out.
Naturally, the focus is on improving fitness and rhythm while avoiding injuries in these games. That said, many of these players know it’s an opportunity to impress the Villa boss before our internationals return from their extended breaks, and so they will be itching to put in positive displays to stake their claim.
It will be fascinating to see how our summer signings in particular continue to adapt and understand Emery’s demands, but we’ll no doubt see a whole host of changes at half-time again, with plenty of experience and youth talent on the bench too as we continue to add depth to our squad in order to compete across multiple fronts in the upcoming campaign.
Notable absentees include Emiliano Buendia, Tyrone Mings and Jacob Ramsey, and so it’s hoped that Villa have ultimately planned to avoid taking any risks with them for now, and will begin the process of reintegrating them into the side during our USA tour after their significant injury layoffs.
Aston Villa: Gauci, Digne, Carlos, Swinkels, Nedeljkovic, Barrenechea, Dendoncker, Iling Jr, Bailey, Barry, Dobbin.
Subs: Olsen, Wright, Cash, Torres, Moreno, Feeney, Kesler Hayden, Bogarde, Jimoh-Aloba, Barkley, Rogers, Young, Archer.
Your Aston Villa team to face FC Spartak Trnava this afternoon. 👊 pic.twitter.com/wx2Qc5QeZo
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) July 20, 2024