Aston Villa vs Crystal Palace injury news - as 4 players ruled out and 3 doubtful

Following the news of Philippe Coutinho picking up a hamstring injury, Aston Villa now have two players ruled out and two doubts ahead of Saturday afternoon’s clash with Crystal Palace. The Villans have had a torrid time of it with injuries this campaign and that is continuing, though the list of absentees is shortening, slowly but surely.

Coutinho pulled up during a training session and Unai Emery has since confirmed the former Liverpool and Barcelona ace will be unavailable until after the international break. “Coutinho is injured and it’s longer than one week. It’s a muscular injury. I think he’ll be out for one month, more or less,” Emery told BirminghamLive.

There is some good news, though, as central defender Diego Carlos is agonisingly close to being back, at long last. He has been stepping up his recovery from an Achilles tendon rupture suffered in the opening month of the season, and Emery is delighted with his progress. It is unlikely but he could be in the squad.

Reserve goalkeeper Jed Steer, who was a promotion hero with Villa back in 2019, is expected to miss a while longer with a similar issue to Carlos. The 30-year-old is yet to feature at all this season after suffering a devastating blow to his Achilles last March, while on loan with Luton Town.

Meanwhile, Emiliano Martinez’s backup, Robin Olsen, has missed the last three games with a training injury and there has been no update since. We have listed him as a doubt as Emery is yet to say anything fresh about the Swede’s condition. Other than that, Villa seemingly have a completely clean bill of health.

For the visitors, key man Wilfried Zaha was left out of the squad to face Liverpool last week, but this was just a caution. “When there is a hamstring issue, you want to be 100 percent sure. The best decision was to give him another week of training,” Patrick Vieira told Sky Sports. The Ivorian has been missing for the last four matches but could return.

Palace also have issues in the backup goalkeeper department as Sam Johnstone is ruled out with a calf injury. Elsewhere, full-back Nathan Ferguson is making good progress in his recovery from an Achilles problem with some minutes for the youth side, but he remains a certain absentee. The Eagles are fortunate enough to have no other issues to disclose.

Doubts: Olsen, Carlos (AVL); Zaha (CRY).

Ruled out: Steer, Coutinho (AVL); Johnstone, Ferguson (CRY).