Aston Villa face Sunderland in the Premier League on Sunday, and Unai Emery has named his starting line-up for the encounter.
Villa head to the North East in search of our first win of the campaign after a bitterly disappointing start to the season, but it won’t be easy against a Sunderland side that has started well and will scrap for every point at home.
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Speaking in his pre-match press conference on Friday, Emery confirmed that Youri Tielemans, Amadou Onana, Ross Barkley and Andres Garcia remain sidelined, while Victor Lindelof was given additional time to recover in order to be under consideration for selection.
There was better news in midweek with Boubacar Kamara returning from his injury setback and getting minutes off the bench in our Carabao Cup clash with Brentford, and so it’s hoped that the others follow sooner rather than later and get us back towards having a full-strength squad.
As per the club’s post below, Villa make two changes to the side that picked a point at Everton in our last league outing, with Kamara and Evann Guessand coming in to replace Lamare Bogarde and Tielemans.
That in turn means John McGinn drops deeper to partner Kamara in the midfield pivot, while Emiliano Buendia, Morgan Rogers and Guessand will provide support for Ollie Watkins in the final third.
There’s good news on the bench as Victor Lindelof has recovered from his knock and is available, and alongside the likes of Jadon Sancho, Harvey Elliott and Donyell Malen, there’s plenty of firepower on the sidelines to change the game if we need them to come on and make an impact.
Emery’s XI should hopefully give us a strong defensive base to build a foundation in the game, and although we’ve got pace and technical quality as well as creativity in the final third, we have to produce the cutting edge and decisive play in attacking areas that has been missing so far. If we can do that, hopefully we’ll end our winless streak and kick-start our season.
Your Villans to take on Sunderland 👊#SUNAVL pic.twitter.com/t2LcL5IZ8t
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) September 21, 2025
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