Aston Villa face Club Brugge in the Champions League, and here’s how Unai Emery’s starting line-up could look for the first leg of our round-of-16 tie.
Having successfully navigated our way through the league phase, we face a familiar foe having lost in Bruges last year after a Tyrone Mings mistake helped the home side secure all three points.
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While we’ll look for redemption for that particular loss, there is now a bigger picture as we hope to advance in the competition to reach the quarter-finals, and we’ll have to perform much better than we did last time we were in Belgium facing this opposition in order to do that.
Emery is boosted by positive news on the injury front ahead of the encounter with key individuals now starting to return from injury, but it remains to be seen if any of them can come straight back into starting XI, or if our bench will be boosted for now.
Four changes from Cardiff win, Asensio & Rashford start?
After recovering from his own injury issue to start in our win over Cardiff City in the FA Cup last Friday night, Emiliano Martinez should continue between the posts.
However, there could be changes to our backline, with Matty Cash potentially coming back into the side having resumed group training this week, with Ezri Konsa, Axel Disasi and Lucas Digne completing our defence.
It could be a big ask for either Mings or Pau Torres to come straight back into the starting line-up given their layoffs, while Disasi is the more sensible option given his experience rather than relying on Lamare Bogarde or potentially shuffling things at the back and playing Konsa at right-back.
Naturally, that will depend on if Cash is able to start or not, but it could be the most balanced and experienced back-four we can put out.
While Boubacar Kamara is now back in contention, John McGinn and Youri Tielemans are likely to continue in our midfield pivot as they have been consistently influential in recent weeks, with Morgan Rogers, Marco Asensio and Marcus Rashford supporting Ollie Watkins in the final third.
Leon Bailey and Jacob Ramsey will have their say as they’ll be desperate to start, but Emery included Rashford and Asensio in his Champions League squad for a reason, and so they’re likely to get the nod on a big night for the club where they can tap into their previous experiences in the competition too.
It will be fascinating to see what Villa line-up Emery goes with though, as ultimately the priority may well be to keep a clean sheet and score on the counter-attack to take a positive result home with us for the second leg.
The potential XI below gives us every chance of doing that with the balance, pace, technical quality, tenacity and physicality that it offers, and hopefully we’ll be in a strong position ahead of the reverse fixture.