Unai Emery, the manager of Aston Villa, has chosen his starting lineup for Sunday’s match against Liverpool at Anfield, with Emiliano Martinez returning from injury to replace Robin Olsen.
The 31-year-old sustained a calf injury in the first leg of our Europa Conference League play-off round tie with Hibernian, and after being removed at half-time, he went on to miss the second leg and our win over Burnley last weekend.
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Martinez was chosen to Argentina’s squad for the forthcoming international break, so it was believed that he would be in contention to play on Merseyside, and thankfully, it has been confirmed that he will return to the starting XI.
Given his experience, leadership, goalkeeping skill, and distribution, having him back will be a huge boost, despite Olsen doing a great job in his absence, and we’ll hopefully have a solid base to go out and win the game this weekend.
Meanwhile, Clement Lenglet is named to the bench after joining on loan from Barcelona this week, and Emery has a strong bench overall, with a number of quality players at his disposal to bring on and impact the game if necessary.
Leander Dendoncker returned in midweek and is in the matchday squad to provide another boost in midfield, while Leon Bailey, Nicolo Zaniolo, and Jhon Duran are in reserve and ready to make an impact, or ideally are options to bring on and help us see out the game in the latter stages.
Villa have recovered excellently from their opening weekend defeat at Newcastle United, and we hope to sign off before the international break.
Villa have bounced back brilliantly from that opening weekend defeat at Newcastle Utd, and it’s hoped that we can sign off before the international break with another significant win to continue to build confidence and momentum
