Aston Villa have suffered an injury setback as Matty Cash has returned home early from international duty with Poland due to a calf issue.
The 25-year-old was replaced after just nine minutes against Czech Republic on Friday night, and it was soon reported that he had picked up a strained left calf muscle injury, which put his availability in doubt for the Albania game next week.
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As per the official Polish men’s national team Twitter account, Cash has now left the camp to return home for treatment, with confirmation of the above in terms of the details of the injury while it’s also added that he is expected to be ruled out of training for around seven days.
With Villa facing Chelsea on April 1, that naturally makes him a major doubt to feature given that timeline as he’ll firstly have to recover and be confident that he won’t aggravate the problem if he comes back too soon, and with a lack of training during the week he’ll surely be short of fitness anyway.
In turn, the expectation is that he will now likely miss the trip to Stamford Bridge next Saturday evening, and it’s hoped that he can recover in time to face Leicester City just three days later.
It’s a disappointing blow given how Cash was starting to showcase his best form of the season so far, especially since Unai Emery took charge, as he looks to be adapting and executing his specific role much more effectively now in both phases of the game.
Should he be sidelined heading into a crucial run-in for us as we look to break into the top half of the Premier League table and beyond, he’ll be hugely frustrated by the setback and itching to get back as soon as possible.
In the event that he is ruled out next weekend, the likely solution for Emery is to bring Ashley Young back in to deputise at right-back, as although Diego Carlos made his return to action in a friendly on Friday, he’s surely still lacking match fitness while the disruption of shifting Ezri Konsa across to right-back seems unnecessary. especially given Villa have kept three clean sheets in our last four games.