On their return to Premier League action against Crystal Palace, Aston Villa will be looking to put an end to their nightmare run of defeats. The Villains have suffered four defeats in-a-row – Emery’s worst run of form in his two-year tenure at the club – and are winless in the league since October 19over a month ago. Nevertheless, the Villa boss urged fans to have patience amid a long season ahead of them.
“38 matches playing against the top seven teamshome and away and other teams, home and away. We played the last two matches away to Tottenham and Liverpool,” Emery told reporters during his press conference on Friday. “The results were not a surprise for us. Maybe we wanted to fight and played more or less like we planned, but made some mistakes.”
Injuries have certainly not helped the side in these opening 11 rounds, as Barkley, Cash, Ramsey, Kamara, Torres, Onana, Maatsen and Konsa have all recently picked up injuries. Barkley has been unavailable in almost a month – since the draw against Bournemouth on October 26, as he was forced off just before half-time with an injury. Meanwhile, Matty Cash has been on the sidelines since Villa’s 4-1 defeat against Tottenham. Midifelders Jacob Ramsey and Boubacar Camera both suffered hamstring injuries in Villa’s latest 2-0 defeat against Liverpool before the break, while the remaining players on the list all sustained injuries while on international duty.
Ian Maatsen pulled out of Netherlands Under-21s squad, though the nature of his injury was not disclosed. Moreover, Pau Torres withdrew from Spain’s squad due to a muscle discomfortwhich he has not recovered from. Amadou Onana teared a muscle in his foot while representing Belgium, thus missing the last round of the Nations League group stages. And lastly, Ezri Konsa was the latest to suffer an injury blow as he was replaced early on during the Three Lions’ game at Greece. Like Onana, the English defender also missed out on the second game for his national team, as England claimed victory against Republic of Ireland without Konsa’s contibution.
While that may be a cause for worry, Emery insisted that they are “small injuries” that won’t be causing issues long-term, putting emphasis on the fact that fitness problems are common to all the teams in the league at the moment. “Overall, when I’m looking at us and other teams, they have injured players. Even tomorrow, Crystal Palace,” he said.
The Spaniard confirmed Kamara, Ramsey, Drunk and So will all be sidelined for the Palace gamebut also reassured that Cash and Barkley are back available in the squad. “We are playing with some players after being injured, some players are out like Konsa, Amadou Onana, Boubacar Kamara and Jacob Ramsey,” he said. “We are adding players (back) like (Matty) Cash and (Ross) Barkleywho are included in the squad tomorrow. We are going to try to feel confident in the players we have in the squad.”
Emery concluded with a final note on his injured players: “They have to rest and recover and each day is very important. For tomorrow they are not available, maybe they could come back for the next match,” he said, referring to the Champions League showdown against Juventus midweek. On the league situation he added: “(We need to) try to keep calmtry to rest,” he said. “We are more or less with the points we were expecting. Even losing we are (going) the right way. But it is very important how we respond tomorrow at Villa Park”.
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