Aston Villa face Bournemouth in the Premier League on Sunday, and Unai Emery has named his starting line-up for the encounter.
After securing our place in the Europa Conference League semi-finals in midweek, the Villa players will need to put in another big shift this weekend as we swift our focus back to the race for a top-four finish.
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With Tottenham not playing this weekend, we have the chance to open up a six-point gap, albeit they’ll have two games in hand, but it would certainly put pressure on them to respond while we’d have the points on the board.
While Emery confirmed in his pre-match press conference that Alex Moreno, Tyrone Mings, Emiliano Buendia, Jacob Ramsey and Boubacar Kamara all remain sidelined, there was an intriguing wait to see if any other players were struggling coming into this off the back of our exploits at Lille.
Naturally, fatigue will be setting in at this late stage of the campaign coupled with knocks, but it was hoped that everyone else would at least be available to the Villa boss for selection or on the bench.
As per the club’s tweet below, Emery has made two changes from the side that started in Lille, with Leon Bailey and Morgan Rogers replacing Douglas Luiz and Nicolo Zaniolo.
Luiz serves the second of his two-match suspension while Zaniolo doesn’t make the matchday squad after limping off in the first half in midweek.
Those two changes aside, it’s as we were last time out with Emiliano Martinez in between the posts, with Matty Cash, Ezri Konsa, Pau Torres and Lucas Digne forming his backline.
In midfield, Bailey, John McGinn, Youri Tielemans and Rogers make up our quartet, with Moussa Diaby supporting Ollie Watkins in the final third.
With energy levels likely low after his effort on Thursday, Villa will need to be precise and sharp against a high-pressing and high energy Bournemouth side, and it’s hoped we can get over the line and secure all three points to solidify our spot in fourth place.
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