Aston Villa have now confirmed their team news ahead of Friday night’s meeting with Liverpool at Villa Park.
This is a huge game for both sides in the race for Champions League football, even with Unai Emery’s team also preparing for next week’s Europa League final.
The update is useful, but it’s not exactly a major injury crisis for the home side.
Aston Villa confirmed via the club’s official website that Amadou Onana remains unavailable for the Premier League clash with Liverpool.
The club stated: “Aston Villa remain without Amadou Onana for Friday night’s Premier League encounter against Liverpool at Villa Park (ko 8pm).”
Emery then said: “We have the same players out. Amadou Onana is not available for tomorrow, Alysson as well is not, Kamara as well is not.
“But other players should be ready to play tomorrow.”
That means Villa are still without Onana, Alysson and long-term absentee Boubacar Kamara, but the final line suggests Emery otherwise expects to have a strong group available.
For Liverpool, that matters because this doesn’t sound like a heavily weakened Villa side, even if the Europa League final against Freiburg is clearly part of the wider picture.
Paul Merson has already backed Villa to beat Liverpool, saying he sees this as “a very winnable game for Aston Villa” because we’ve not been playing well enough.
That is the challenge for Arne Slot, because the Dutchman needs a performance after another flat showing in the 1-1 draw with Chelsea.
Liverpool have at least been handed some positive injury news, with Mo Salah set to return to the squad and Ibou Konate fit again.
Slot has also said Alisson Becker is back in training, although the Brazilian still needs to be assessed before a decision is made.
Villa may have European glory on their mind, but they also need league points and momentum, so Liverpool can’t simply hope their hosts are distracted.
We need to make the most of any uncertainty, play with far more intensity and stop turning winnable games into frustrating missed opportunities.
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Happy to hear that we are playing our strongest team we have to go all out from the off . What worries me is that we blow hot and cold and who knows how we will play could be similar to how we played against Forest which would give us a fighting chance, or we could fail to turn up as we did against Burnley and we would stand to get hammered Who knows ?
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