Aston Villa face a difficult trip to Chelsea on Sunday as we look to bounce back after disappointment in Europe in midweek.
Our highly anticipated Europa Conference League campaign got underway with a defeat in Warsaw on Thursday evening, and with a quick turnaround between games, Unai Emery will have to regroup and refocus his squad for the next challenge ahead.
READ MORE: Five key talking points as Villa fall to disappointing defeat in UECL opener
Having battled back to secure a dramatic win over Crystal Palace last time out in the Premier League, we’ll hopefully be able to build on that and pick up an important result at Stamford Bridge to continue to climb the standings.
Despite making a number of changes in midweek as he opted to rotate, Emery noted on Friday that he will have to assess the condition of his players ahead of Sunday, and so it remains to be seen if anyone is ruled out with new issues.
“We worked today with the players who didn’t play in the starting XI yesterday while the other players recover,” he told the media on Friday, as per VillaTV. “After we came back late yesterday, today was very important to rest and to work a little bit. We are going to wait for tomorrow to prepare the match on Sunday and see which players are 100% ready to play.”
Subject to availability, we can certainly expect a Villa XI that’s closer to our strongest line-up for this encounter, with a number of key individuals coming back in after being rested against Legia Warsaw.
Emiliano Martinez will continue between the posts, but we’re likely to see Matty Cash and Pau Torres restored to form part of our backline with Ezri Konsa, and it could be an opportunity for Alex Moreno to return from his injury layoff.
The Spaniard has been back in group training since the international break, and perhaps even if he’s only able to log around an hour on Sunday, he could replace Lucas Digne at left-back, who struggled defensively again on Thursday as question marks were raised over his solidity on that side of the defence.
It could be that Emery opts to go the other way though, and sticks with Digne and Moreno gets minutes in the second half, thus setting him up for a start in our Carabao Cup clash with Everton next week.
In midfield, Douglas Luiz should come back in for Youri Tielemans after the latter failed to make a positive impact last time out. Boubacar Kamara, Leon Bailey and John McGinn are expected to complete the midfield quartet, albeit Kamara did come off in Warsaw while Bailey was the target of a number of heavy challenges and so his condition could be one to monitor.
That in turn could open the door for Jacob Ramsey to come back into the starting XI, having returned from his own spell on the sidelines with a valuable 25-minute run-out in midweek to build his match fitness and sharpness. The 22-year-old looked good in the latter stages, and so that could perhaps tempt Emery into starting him and then protecting him later in the game by bringing him off if he struggles,
While Jhon Duran impressed with another goal and Nicolo Zaniolo put in another positive shift, it’s likely that Moussa Diaby and Ollie Watkins will both come back into the Villa XI for this one, and so our XI should resemble something very close to our strongest line-up.
Emery revealed after the Legia Warsaw defeat that he’s hopeful Diego Carlos will return to training with the group next week, while long-term absentees Tyrone Mings and Emiliano Buendia remain sidelined.
Predicted Aston Villa XI vs Chelsea: Martinez; Cash, Konsa, Pau, Digne; Bailey, Kamara, Luiz, McGinn; Diaby, Watkins.
Would you make any changes to this Villa line-up? Moreno and/or Ramsey to start?
Yes a tactical error my guess is the vast majority of fans would not have picked the same team that started, another error was taking Duran off hard to believe best player on the park we made a massive mistake and we paid the price got what we deserved now we have to move on.
On another subject Watkins form or lack of is very concerning can we afford to keep picking him over Duran personally not for me.