Aston Villa face Newcastle Utd in our opening Premier League game of the season on Saturday evening, and Unai Emery has named his starting XI.
Villa suffered a massive blow in midweek with the news that Emiliano Buendia had sustained knee ligament damage and is expected to now miss a significant part of the campaign.
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With Emery also confirming that Jacob Ramsey, Alex Moreno, Jhon Duran, Leander Dendoncker, Tim Iroegbunam and Bertrand Traore will all be absent this weekend too, our depth is certainly far from being at its strongest in the opening weeks of the season.
Nevertheless, we still have plenty of quality available for our opener, and it’s a strong Villa starting line-up that has been named as we go in search of three big points at St James’ Park in what promises to be a difficult encounter.
As expected, Emiliano Martinez starts between the posts, and after much discussion over who would get the nod in defence, it’s a familiar-looking backline with Matty Cash and Lucas Digne in the full-back roles, with Ezri Konsa and Tyrone Mings in the middle.
There was much discussion during the week as to whether Pau Torres might start on the left side or if Konsa would be shifted to right-back, but given the difficulty of the opposition and it being on the road, Emery has opted to go with a formula that worked very well for us last season.
John McGinn, Boubacar Kamara and Douglas Luiz continue that theme, with Leon Bailey getting the nod ahead of Jaden Philogene.
There will be a Premier League debut for Moussa Diaby as he’ll either play out wide or support in behind Ollie Watkins, and with their pace and movement in the final third, it’s hoped that we can cause the Newcastle defence plenty of problems.
However, we have to get the balance right in this game and our midfield need to contribute to produce a solid defensive performance, as the hosts certainly have plenty of threats of their own and we’ll need to deal with it to have a foundation on which to go out and win the game.
Refreshingly, there are also a number of top options off the bench to change the game if needed, with Torres, Youri Tielemans, Philippe Coutinho and Cameron Archer amongst the substitutes.
Your Aston Villa team to start the @PremierLeague season at St. James' Park. 👊 #NEWAVL pic.twitter.com/CZF0HIwG5z
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) August 12, 2023