Aston Villa face a difficult test against Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday, as we go in search of a fifth consecutive win across all competitions.
The response has been superb after that bitterly disappointing defeat to Newcastle Utd on the opening weekend, with four straight wins across all competitions, while we’ve scored 15 goals and conceded just one.
Sign up for the Talk Villa newsletter, a free weekly Villa round-up delivered straight to you!
This will be the toughest test by far though, and with the international break looming, it would be a huge boost for all concerned if we can return home from Merseyside with a positive result.
While we’re still missing key players through injury, we’ve shown an ability to cope without them as Unai Emery continues to find solutions. However, we’ll need to put in a top performance collectively this weekend if we are to continue our impressive surge in recent weeks.
Hope over Emi Martinez, Lenglet could make bench
As per his pre-match press conference on Friday, Emery has confirmed that Jacob Ramsey, Bertrand Traore, Alex Moreno and Tim Iroegbunam remain sidelined and will play no part.
It’s hoped that they return after the break to give us a crucial boost at an important time given our schedule later this month, while the focus remains on one player in particular when it comes to Sunday’s encounter.
The Villa boss added that Emiliano Martinez trained on Friday morning as he continues his recovery from a calf injury, but it’s unclear at this stage if he trained on Saturday to get the green light to be available, and so there will be an anxious wait until the starting XI is announced.
Should he recover in time, Martinez will return between the posts, but if he is still sidelined, Robin Olsen will no doubt continue to deputise for him.
Given our impressive display last time out in the Premier League in our win away at Burnley, it’s unlikely that Emery will opt to change anything having also had the benefit of being able to rotate and rest players in midweek against Hibernian.
Ezri Konsa, Diego Carlos, Pau Torres and Lucas Digne could form the back four again, with Matty Cash deployed in a more advanced role on the right side, with Douglas Luiz, Boubacar Kamara and John McGinn for company to complete our midfield.
There’s seemingly no need to break up the Moussa Diaby and Ollie Watkins partnership in the final third as the pair continues to impress and play key roles, and so it could very well be an unchanged side that is named on Sunday.
Having completed his loan move from Barcelona on Friday, it remains to be seen if Clement Lenglet is available to come straight into the matchday squad and bolster our bench as we need depth and competition across the squad, particularly in that specific area in the absence of Tyrone Mings.
It’s unlikely the Frenchman will make his debut unless we’re perhaps holding on for a win and need to bolster our defensive ranks in the latter stages, but we’ll hopefully see more of Nicolo Zaniolo in this one, while Leander Dendoncker has now returned to training and featured off the bench on Thursday night, and so he’ll provide another important boost.
Consistency and familiarity could be the key for Villa this weekend in terms of our line-up, as we hope that we can produce another top display and really make a statement with a win at Anfield.
