Aston Villa boss Unai Emery is set to welcome back Matty Cash from injury this week, and it could prove to be a pivotal boost for us given our recent struggles.
In a chaotic nine minutes against Brentford last Saturday, Villa surrendered a 2-0 lead and had to produce a comeback to salvage a point, with all three goals for the visitors coming from crosses down our right side.
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Against Lille in midweek, the visitors thought they’d scored an important goal as Gabriel Gudmundsson ghosted in at the back post behind Ezri Konsa and with Leon Bailey spotting the run too late, but fortunately VAR judged him to be offside.
While it’s not to say that Cash will completely solve the issue, having our first-choice right-back, playing in his natural role, and allowing Konsa to shift back inside to partner Pau Torres in the middle, could be fundamental to how our season ends.
“We will train tomorrow, today we recover with some players, we did compensation work,” Emery told the media on Friday, as per VillaTV. “Lenglet and Cash are training today with the group.”
Our trip to Arsenal on Sunday may well come too soon for the Polish international given his lack of playing time over the past month or so, but if he can get the green light to return in Lille, even off the bench, that will certainly be a welcome sight.
Cash doesn’t necessarily tick all the boxes perfectly and reports earlier in the season had suggested that he hadn’t convinced Emery as of that point. Ultimately though, he’s made 40 appearances so far this season and so is clearly trusted by the Villa boss, knows the position, he adds something both defensively and going forward, and helps bring a better balance to the backline.
That will all be integral to Emery as he tries to solidify our defence and make us harder to beat in our run-in, as after conceding eight goals in our last three games and keeping one clean sheet in our last five outings, we’ve become too porous at the back and the manner in which we’re conceding has become a source of real frustration.
It promises to be a difficult assignment this weekend as well as in Lille next Thursday evening, but Villa must rediscover our balance and continue to not only grind out results when necessary, but start to dominate and control games in the way that Emery wants us to, and as we’ve done previously, to produce more convincing performances.