Aston Villa welcome Celtic tonight with a skinny squad available to Unai Emery but aiming for a victory which will give them a fighting chance of finishing in one of the coveted top eight spots which offer a straight route to the last 16 of the competition.

Villa are expected to be without Amadou Onana, Ross Barkley, Tyrone Mings and Pau Torres for this fixture, while Emiliano Buendia has been granted a move to Bayer Leverkusen ahead of Monday night's transfer window deadline. Speculation continues to follow Jhon Duran, too, although he has trained as usual with his teammates in preparation for this game.

Celtic, meanwhile, are blunted in attack themselves; Daizen Maeda is suspended, while Kyogo Furuhashi has recently completed his £10m move to French club Rennes. Alex Valles has returned to Barcelona, James Forrest remains out and Cameron Carter-Vickers will be a big miss in defence.

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Both Villa and Celtic have been busy this month in adding new faces to their squads; Villa have added winger Donyell Malen from Borussia Dortmund and right-back Andres Garcia from Levante, while the Bhoys this week confirmed the return of Jota. None of those three players will be permitted to feature at Villa Park for their respective clubs, though. They can, however, be registered in time for the knock-out rounds.

On their website, UEFA say: "Ahead of the knockout phase, clubs can register a maximum of three new players by 00:00 CET on 6 February 2025. Any or all of the players from the above quota of three may have been fielded for another club in the qualifying phase, play-offs or league phase of the Champions League, Europa League or Conference League. The overall limit of 25 players on List A (the Champions League squad) remains, though, along with the quota of eight locally-trained players."

Expected Aston Villa senior squad (from): Emiliano Martinez, Joe Gauci, Robin Olsen; Kosta Nedeljkovic, Matty Cash, Ezri Konsa, Lucas Digne, Ian Maatsen, Lamare Bogarde, John McGinn, Boubacar Kamara, Youri Tielemans, Jacob Ramsey, Morgan Rogers, Leon Bailey, Ollie Watkins, Jhon Duran

What is your Villa XI for this evening? Have your say HERE