Aston Villa face Crystal Palace on Saturday in the Premier League, and here’s how Unai Emery’s starting line-up could look for the clash.
The international break potentially came at a good time for Villa after our poor run of form leading up to it, but injury woes over the past fortnight have raised question marks about that touted theory.
READ MORE: Key injured Villa quartet ruled out vs Palace but Emery confirms double boost
After both Boubacar Kamara and Jacob Ramsey picked up setbacks against Liverpool, the likes of Amadou Onana, Ezri Konsa, Pau Torres and Ian Maatsen suffered issues while on international duty, and Emery provided an update in his pre-match press conference on Friday to rule a number of players out.
Konsa, Onana, Kamara and Ramsey will not feature this weekend, but there was better news in the form of Matty Cash and Ross Barkley returning from their own knocks, and so Emery does have several important decisions to make when it comes to his starting line-up for this encounter.
Cash and Barkley to come straight back into Villa XI?
Emiliano Martinez will continue between the posts, while Lucas Digne, Torres, Diego Carlos and Cash are expected to form his backline with the absence of Konsa in mind.
It’s certainly a major blow to lose our influential centre-half, but hopefully with Cash returning, we’ll have a sense of balance restored in defence with a natural right-back in place, and that will hopefully lead to a stronger defensive performance from the team as a whole as we must improve in that department.
With no Onana or Kamara, Barkley’s return is timely as he’ll possibly now come straight into the Villa XI to partner Youri Tielemans in the midfield pivot, while that allows Leon Bailey, John McGinn and Morgan Rogers to form our attacking trident to support Ollie Watkins in the final third.
There are others who could be in contention despite our injury concerns, namely Lamare Bogarde and Jaden Philogene, but with Villa in need of getting back to winning ways and building some positive form heading into the festive period, Emery may well go with the strongest line-up available to him before others start to return from their injuries.
The Villa XI below will hopefully give us a good balance from a tactical standpoint and has the personnel to get the better of the opposition, but ultimately this comes down to showing more intensity, energy, urgency and quality than we have in recent weeks, and the hope is that we’ll have too much for Palace and it will lead to us securing all three points in a return to winning form.
Predicted Villa XI vs Palace:
❌ No Konsa, Onana, Kamara or Ramsey.
✅ Cash & Barkley to come into XI?Few others in contention, namely Bogarde & Philogene, but crucial we get back to winning ways and build some form again, and this could be strongest line-up.#avfc #UTV 🟣🔵 pic.twitter.com/yWG7q8YZN8
— Talk Villa (@thetalkvilla) November 22, 2024