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Unai Emery remains hopeful over one injury doubt as Aston Villa duo ruled out of Liverpool clash

Aston Villa midfielder Youri Tielemans
-Credit: (Image: Getty Images)


Unai Emery hopes to have midfielder Youri Tielemans return to his team for Saturday's match with Liverpool. Aston Villa will already be without two key players for the clash at Anfield.

One final fixture before the November international break sees Arne Slot's side pitted against high-flying Villa. Like the Reds, the West Midlands team stunned everyone when they secured Champions League qualification last term ahead of the likes of Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.

As Liverpool swept aside Bayer Leverkusen in midweek, Emery's team had their first European defeat inflicted on them by Club Brugge in rather bizarre circumstances. Tryone Mings mistakenly picked up a pass from goalkeeper Emi Martinez, leading to a decisive spot-kick.

Tielemans started that match in his homeland on Wednesday and actually stayed the duration, though afterwards was nursing a small knee issue. It has been enough to rule him out of Belgium's internationals over the next two weeks but Emery is hopeful he is fine for Saturday, say sister site Birmingham Live.

In their own update, Villa have stated that they expect the 27-year-old to be involved, whilst providing the latest on recent absentees Matty Cash and Ross Barkley.

The former picked up a new problem in last weekend's 4-1 defeat at Tottenham whilst ex-Everton midfielder Barkley injured himself before Villa were knocked out of the Carabao Cup over one week ago.

Both have been ruled out until after the international break, and therefore should not be with the visiting side on Saturday.

Slot has four injury problems of his own, with Alisson Becker, Harvey Elliott, Federico Chiesa and Diogo Jota all absent until after the international break as well. He provided an update on the latter this morning, explaining a setback should keep him ruled out for up to two weeks once clubs return to action later in November.