Emery confirms three Aston Villa players will miss out against Liverpool | OneFootball

Unai Emery has confirmed that Emiliano Buendia will be absent against Liverpool and addressed Ollie Watkins’ struggle for goals.

Aston Villa will not be able to count on Buendia when they head to Anfield this weekend, as the Argentinian is still sidelined with a foot injury from last week’s win over Manchester City.

Emery confirmed the winger would miss the clash, but felt he should be fit in time for Villa’s Conference League game against Maccabi Tel Aviv on Thursday.

“He is not available for tomorrow, but the injury he has is going well,” he said.

“I think with a few days more, he can be fit and available for the next matches, hopefully.”

Youri Tielemans and Andrés García will again miss out, with Emery saying: “Still the same players out. Youri Tielemans, he is progressing well. He is going to start training hopefully next week with the group.

“The other one is Andrés. Andrés is progressively getting better, but still some weeks to come back.”

Also asked about Ollie Watkins’ struggling form, with just one goal in nine league games, the Villa boss praised his number nine’s consistent work ethic, saying: ”The strikers like to score goals but I feel good when he is doing his task and working for the team.

“I know from the experiences we have that the goals are coming. His most important quality is his consistency and he has to continue being consistent and getting confidence.

Villa, having failed to win any of their opening five games of the Premier League season, come into their match against the defending champions on a fine run of form.

Four wins from their last four league games, compared to Liverpool’s four defeats from four, might make the visitors optimistic, but Emery recognised the hard work his squad have put in and warned of complacency against Liverpool.  

“We increased our demands in the training sessions and in meetings,” he said. “I was worried one month ago how we were performing because it was a bad, bad moment and our performances were poor,” he said.

“Progressively we are getting better. Now is the moment we have one problem if we are relaxing because we are performing better we can get confused. My worry now is to try to be very demanding and keep being consistent like we did the last matches we played.

“Tomorrow, if we want to be with the level Liverpool have, we have to be so, so demanding, clinical and focused in everything we have to do. I have massive respect for them. They can have some moments where they’re not getting good results, but the coach showed last year his capacity and experience.”

The key, according to Emery, will be Villa’s ability to be clinical if they hope to take points home from their trip to Liverpool this weekend: “My respect is massive, and I know tomorrow it’s going to be very difficult to get something there. We have to do our best tactically, our best individually, and we have to be clinical.”

“To stop them is very difficult. They have some injuries like we have. I’m excited and motivated, even more for the difficulties we will face against them.”