Aston Villa take on Crystal Palace in the Premier League in midweek, and Unai Emery has named his starting line-up for the encounter at Selhurst Park.
The Villa boss faces a difficult challenge amid our hectic schedule, as after securing a crucial win over Chelsea last weekend, we host Cardiff City in our FA Cup tie on Friday night.
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His ability to rotate and rest key individuals is limited due to our injury issues currently, but there is still plenty of quality and firepower at his disposal to put out a strong Villa XI against Palace and hopefully get the desired result.
Emery confirmed in his pre-match press conference that Pau Torres, Ross Barkley and Amadou Onana were likely to miss out, while both Tyrone Mings and Morgan Rogers faced late fitness tests to determine their availability after suffering knocks on Saturday evening.
As per the club’s post below, Villa have made four changes, with Andres Garcia, Axel Disasi, Lucas Digne and Lamare Bogarde coming in for Matty Cash, Tyrone Mings, Ian Maatsen and Marco Asensio.
There’s a double boost with Rogers starting while Mings is fit enough for the bench so we’ve avoid further injury setbacks, although there is no Cash in the matchday squad as it remains to be seen if he’s picked up another blow which has forced him to miss out.
Nevertheless, it’s a strong, balanced Villa side for a tricky game on the road, and it will hopefully give us a solid foundation on which we can build and get the three points, with plenty of attacking quality on the pitch and on the bench to make the difference.
Both Asensio and Marcus Rashford have made a positive impact since arriving, and time will tell if we’ll need them again at Palace to provide a decisive touch off the bench to keep our good run of form going.
How we line up to face Crystal Palace 👊 #CRYAVL pic.twitter.com/1lFMOn3kK3
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) February 25, 2025