Aston Villa take on Tottenham in the Premier League on Sunday, and here’s how Unai Emery’s starting line-up could look for the encounter.
Villa will be looking to bounce back after disappointment in midweek following our Carabao Cup defeat to Crystal Palace, while having also conceded a last-gasp equaliser against Bournemouth last weekend, we’re looking to respond after a frustrating week.
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Emery opted to rotate and made wholesale changes for our Cup game, but naturally the expectation in this one is that the Villa boss will return to his strongest possible XI for what will be a difficult challenge in north London against an Ange Postecoglu side looking to close the gap on us in the standings.
As confirmed in his pre-match press conference on Friday, Emery noted that Ross Barkley will be absent until after the international break after picking up an injury, but that setback aside, we should be at full-strength again.
Right-back decision, same XI as last weekend?
Emiliano Martinez will return to the side after being rested in midweek, but it remains to be seen if he has the same backline in front of him as he had in our draw with Bournemouth.
The hope is that we see Matty Cash, Ezri Konsa, Pau Torres and Lucas Digne form our defence, but Emery does like the option of going with Diego Carlos in the middle and shifting Konsa across to right-back in big games.
That in turn gives us more defensive solidity and shape to drop into a back-three at times and give license for Digne to get forward and add an important attacking dynamic to our play, but after Carlos was guilty of making a costly mistake again in midweek and with Cash playing well since returning from injury, it’s hoped that we go for our strongest backline for this clash.
Amadou Onana and Youri Tielemans will come back into the XI after sitting out against Palace, while John McGinn, Morgan Rogers and Jacob Ramsey will likely provide support for Ollie Watkins in the final third.
As a result, out-of-form Leon Bailey will drop to the bench along with Jhon Duran, but it promises to be a strong bench once again with the added bonus of Tyrone Mings and Boubacar Kamara now getting back up to speed with their match fitness and sharpness after completing 90 minutes in midweek.
Emery will undoubtedly have a gameplan in mind that he believes gives us the best possible chance of winning this particular game against this specific opposition, and so perhaps we could see certain key tweaks to allow us to impose ourselves and execute that gameplan to come away with all three points.
Nevertheless, with the defensive solidity, control and pace in the line-up below, it will hopefully give us the necessary balance in a difficult away game to not only limit Tottenham’s threat but to also cause them plenty of problems defensively too, as this promises to be a difficult challenge to start a tough week of away fixtures across the league and Champions League with Club Brugge and Liverpool to follow.