Aston Villa face Wycombe Wanderers in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday night, and Unai Emery has named his starting line-up for the clash.
With our Premier League and Champions League schedules in mind, the expectation was that the Villa boss would make wholesale changes to his side for this game in order to rest a number of key players.
READ MORE: What is Villa’s best option in key position as Emery utilises various solutions?
Further, with our strength in depth in the current squad, it’s also an opportunity for others to get valuable minutes and stake their claim for a bigger role, and so it’s hoped regardless of personnel, we’re able to get the result required to advance to the next round.
John McGinn did not travel with the rest of the squad after suffering a hamstring injury this past weekend in our win over Wolves, and there were doubts still lingering over the likes of Matty Cash, Tyrone Mings and Boubacar Kamara in terms of whether or not they were set to get approval to be named in the matchday squad after injury layoffs of their own.
As per the club’s post below, Emery has made significant changes to his XI, with Amadou Onana the only player to start who was named in our line-up this past weekend.
Joe Gauci comes in between the posts with Kosta Nedeljkovic, Lamare Bogarde, Sil Swinkels and Ian Maatsen forming the backline in front of him.
It looks a lot stronger and more experienced in our midfield with Onana and Ross Barkley set to sit in the pivot, while Leon Bailey and Kadan Young will look to provide width and an attacking threat on the flanks in the final third.
Emiliano Buendia will support Jhon Duran up top, and so it’s hoped that we have the right balance between youth and experience to ultimately get the job done and ideally without any new injury concerns heading into more important fixtures in the coming weeks.
It’s a big chance for Duran too as he looks to build on his brilliant impact so far this season, but it will be a challenge for him to transfer that form being a substitute to a starter, and ideally he’ll be able to do that and lead the way in a Villa win in midweek.
Our starting XI for tonight’s game 👇#WYCAVL || #UpTheVilla pic.twitter.com/CMCtxJUn8j
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) September 24, 2024
