Will Morgan Rogers start vs Crystal Palace - latest after Aston Villa star suffers injury

Unai Emery has confirmed both Morgan Rogers and Tyrone Mings will face late fitness tests to determine whether they can feature for Aston Villa away at Crystal Palace tonight.

Both players were substituted with injury concerns during Saturday’s 2-1 victory over Chelsea. Mings was replaced after feeling pain in his knee and Rogers was withdrawn following a kick to the lower leg.

It’s been a brutal fixture schedule for Villa with Tuesday night’s visit to Selhurst Park the fourth Premier League outing in the space of just 10 days, while the FA Cup fifth round tie against Cardiff City awaits this Friday. That works out as five games in two weeks, one every 2.8 days.

Injuries were likely as a result of fatigue setting in. Mings felt he was fine to carry on against Chelsea but it was clear the central defender was struggling to sprint. Rogers’ knock wasn’t actually due to fatigue directly but he still looked leggy before receiving his kick.

“When I subbed (Mings), he was telling me he could continue playing. He’s a very important player for us,” Emery admitted during Monday’s pre-match press conference. “In case (Rogers) is not available for tomorrow, of course, we are going to use another player and believe in our squad to help in the moment.

“We are going to train and after we will see. I don’t know exactly. Of course, we played on Saturday with a big effort physically and mentally as well. We have to recover firstly physically and secondly our energy is going to be very important to play focusing on this match like the difficulty it always has,” he said.

Villa not short of options

Had one of Youri Tielemans or John McGinn gone off injured on the weekend, Villa would have been very nervous as the depth in defensive midfield is shallow due to Boubacar Kamara, Amadou Onana and Ross Barkley all being sidelined at current.

The good news with Mings and Rogers’ knocks is Emery has the necessary replacements to call upon if required. Central defence isn’t an ideal area to suffer an injury but there’s just about enough options, while in attacking midfield there are a plethora.

Mings is unlikely to start against Palace as Axel Disasi is available once more following his ineligibility against parent club Chelsea. Ezri Konsa can shift across to the left-sided centre-back role to offer Mings some reprieve, while Matty Cash and Andres Garcia will compete for the right-back spot. Lucas Digne is likely to come in for Ian Maatsen on the other side.

Emery rarely ever benches Rogers but this may be the time to do it, as much as Fantasy Premier League managers with the attacker in their side won’t want to hear that. The England international has started 26 of Villa’s 27 Premier League matches this campaign and he’s only been substituted in 10 of them, displaying his importance to the team and Emery’s structure.

Such importance is all the more reason to not risk Rogers, though, as exacerbating the issue would only lead to more matches missed. The likelihood is Marco Asensio will continue in the number 10 role and Leon Bailey, who impressed Emery as a substitute against Chelsea, will replace Rogers on the right wing.

Read on for BirminghamWorld’s full predicted lineup to take on Palace.