Aston Villa host Crystal Palace in the Premier League on Saturday afternoon, and Unai Emery has named his starting line-up for the encounter.
The Villa boss confirmed good news on the injury front in his pre-match press conference on Friday, with Alex Moreno now back in group training having recovered from the hamstring injury that has sidelined him since May.
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Further, Jacob Ramsey is said to be closing in on a return to training but isn’t quite ready yet, while Bertrand Traore, Diego Carlos and Tim Iroegbunam were ruled out.
In turn, the expectation was that there wouldn’t be too many changes, barring the only forced one with Carlos sidelined having been replaced after just 19 minutes at Liverpool prior to the international break.
While many expected Leon Bailey to get the nod, it’s Nicolo Zaniolo who gets his first start since his summer arrival, with the Italian international looking to build on impressive cameo appearances off the bench as well as a positive outing for Italy over the break.
It remains to be seen if he’ll be deployed on the left or right side, but it’s hoped that he can showcase his quality and prove to be a great fit in the starting XI in order to establish himself in the line-up moving forward.
Meanwhile, Villa are also handed a major boost with Alex Moreno returning to the bench, and so it’s hoped that we’re in a position to give the Spaniard valuable minutes in the latter stages of the game to get his match fitness and sharpness up.
He forms part of a strong looking bench now as Villa’s squad depth looks so much better with more players yet to return from injury, and so with a busy run of games coming up in the next fortnight, it’s vital that everyone steps up when called upon.
All eyes will be on Zaniolo to start this one though, as with so much promise, potential and backing from the Villa faithful already, it’s hoped that he can be a decisive figure for us and put on a show in his full debut.
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