Aston Villa host Brighton in the Premier League on Monday night, and here’s how Unai Emery’s starting line-up could look for the encounter.
Our inconsistency in recent weeks continued on Boxing Day, as we failed to build on our win over Manchester City and fell to a 3-0 defeat at Newcastle Utd. In turn, a response will now be expected as we look to extend our strong home form.
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Villa have won three consecutive games at Villa Park going into this fixture, and with the frustration and disappointment from the result on Tyneside coupled with circumstances during the game around Jhon Duran’s dismissal, we’ll hopefully be looking to make a point to wrap up the year on a positive note.
With the club’s appeal to overturn that red card being rejected, Duran will now serve a three-game suspension, while Matty Cash also misses out against Brighton due to suspension having picked up his fifth caution of the campaign last time out.
There was better news on the injury front though as Emery has indicated that Jacob Ramsey could be in contention to make the matchday squad for this clash, and so it’s hoped that he will further strengthen our bench options.
Carlos, Watkins to come into Villa starting XI amid Cash, Duran absences
While Emiliano Martinez will continue between the posts, there will be a reshuffle in front of him in his defence with Cash being unavailable.
The most likely option that Emery will go with is Diego Carlos coming in and Ezri Konsa shifting across to right-back, with Pau Torres and Lucas Digne completing the backline.
However, Tyrone Mings, Kosta Nedeljkovic and Lamare Bogarde will all hope to be in the conversation too, and so it will be interesting to see if Emery will go with his tried and trusted solution, or if he’ll make a different tweak that he believes will prove to be more effective against Brighton.
Amadou Onana and Boubacar Kamara should continue in the midfield pivot, with John McGinn, Youri Tielemans and Morgan Rogers forming our attacking trident behind the frontman.
With no Duran, Ollie Watkins will come back into the Villa XI and lead the line, and he’ll be desperate to rediscover some good form having struggled to make a decisive impact in recent weeks.
Naturally, there will be others who will be pushing for a part to play too, namely Ian Maatsen, Ross Barkley and Leon Bailey, but with our next game against Leicester City coming at home on Saturday afternoon, Emery may well be eager to go with a settled starting line-up that is building rhythm and chemistry, rather than make changes to disrupt that momentum.
Agree with the Villa XI below, or would you make any changes?
