Aston Villa v Leicester - Matt Maher preview
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00:00Good afternoon from Body Moorheath, well Villa kick off 2025 tomorrow when they host Leicester City and Unai Emery is set to be without five first team players.
00:14Morgan Rodgers and John Duran are both suspended, Jadon Filagin is injured, Diego Carlos is injured and Pau Torres, it has been now confirmed, is going to be out for two months.
00:26Villa's worst fears realised, it was suspected on a Monday evening that Torres had sustained a broken foot when he came off the pitch after just 20 minutes against Brighton and that is indeed what has happened.
00:38He's broken the fourth metatarsal in his right foot and will be sidelined until March. He's going to miss some key fixtures in the Premier League and the Champions League and with Carlos out injured it means that Villa's defence tomorrow pretty much picks itself.
00:53It will be Matty Cash who's back available again thankfully after suspension at right back. Esri Konza, Tyrone Mings and Luca Dean. Mings starting for just the second time in the Premier League after returning from long term injury.
01:09The absence of Rodgers and Duran meanwhile causes Villa a bit of a headache in attack. Of course Duran is serving the second of a three match ban that he's sending off at Newcastle on Boxing Day.
01:20Rodgers has picked up five bookings for the season and he's going to be a big loss. Obviously he's been in great form, scored his sixth Premier League goal of the season on Monday against Brighton and the fact is that Rodgers and Duran have been among the few sources of goals for Villa this season.
01:38A lot of talk about Villa's defence, they've conceded 31 goals in the first 19 games of the season and of course that is a worry but they've only scored 28 which compared to the 40 goals they had at this stage last season shows just how much of a drop off there has been in attack. Just seven different players have found the net and that includes Matty Cash and Esri Konza who have both scored once.
02:00Ollie Watkins for all that he's perceived that he's not having a great campaign or certainly not as good a campaign as he did last season, still their most productive player topping the charts in both goals and assists but it's the likes of Uri Tielemans who face his former club tomorrow, John McGinn and Leon Bailey who really need to get off the mark and start contributing in the goals column.