Aston Villa suffer injury blow on eve of Crystal Palace clash

Unai Emery has confirmed that both Ezri Konsa and Amadou Onana will miss Aston Villa's Premier League match with Crystal Palace on Saturday (November 23).

Both players suffered injuries whilst away on international duty with England and Belgium respectively. Konsa has a hip problem, while Onana sustained a muscle tear in his foot during Belgium's 1-0 defeat to Italy in the UEFA Nations League on Thursday.

Konsa has been a useful figure to have in the defence this season as he's filled in at right-back when Matty Cash has been unavailable. Before suffering his injury, Konsa had started 10 out of the 11 Premier League games played so far. Summer signing Onana missed the draw with Manchester United due to a hamstring injury but has also played 10 times this term.

“They [Konsa and Onana] have small injuries, both,” said Emery in his pre-match press conference.

“They have to rest, recover and each day is very important. For tomorrow they are not available, maybe they could come back the next match but we have to focus on the players we have now."

Jacob Ramsey and Boubacar Kamara are also expected to miss out. The two of them have hamstring injuries that will put them out of action for this match, but they will hopefully return next week.

There is good news for Villa though as both Matty Cash and Ross Barkley are expected to return. The pair both had injuries that were described as small by Emery.

Cash is likely to start at right-back, and that will leave Emery wondering what centre-back partnership he should go with. Pau Torres has trained despite being withdrawn from the Spain squad. Diego Carlos and Tyrone Mings are two options that Emery could consider pairing Pau with.

As for Palace, Oliver Glasner confirmed that Eberechi Eze would not feature against Villa. Cheick Doucoure, Jefferson Lerma and Chris Richards are all available, whilst Will Hughes returns from suspension. Daichi Kamada is missing after picking up a red card against Fulham.