Aston Villa host Fulham in the Premier League on Saturday, and Unai Emery has named his starting line-up for the crucial encounter.
With no more room for error in our bid to qualify for the Champions League through a top-five finish and needing to bounce back after back-to-back bitterly disappointing results, this is a crunch game for Villa as we look to ensure our season doesn’t entirely slip away.
READ MORE: What Villa must do vs Fulham with no more room for error
Our FA Cup semi-final defeat to Crystal Palace last weekend will continue to sting for some time, but it’s on Emery and the players to use that frustration and disappointment as fuel in our remaining four league outings to achieve a critical objective at the start of the season.
With no more involvement in other competitions now, the Villa boss is expected to name his strongest starting XI in the coming weeks where possible, but naturally he’ll have individual and tailored gameplans depending on the opponent, and so there was intrigue ahead of this clash with Fulham to see what he went with.
Having confirmed Marcus Rashford is ruled out after suffering a hamstring injury last week, Villa make one change with Ian Maatsen coming in to replace Lucas Digne.
He joins Pau Torres, Ezri Konsa and Matty Cash in forming our backline in front of Emiliano Martinez, while Boubacar Kamara and Youri Tielemans continue in the midfield pivot.
It will be on John McGinn, Marco Asensio and Morgan Rogers to provide support behind Ollie Watkins in the final third, as Villa must find the balance between playing with control and patience, but showing the intensity and urgency that’s been sorely lacking in the last two games.
It’s must-win territory for Villa now, and hopefully it starts with a convincing win this weekend to lift spirits and build some momentum.
Team news is in — UP THE VILLA 👊 #AVLFUL pic.twitter.com/ZhF8PpqveS
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) May 3, 2025
