Aston Villa take on Newcastle United in their second game of the 2021/22 Premier League season and they will once again be without Ollie Watkins.
Watkins missed the 2-3 loss to Watford but the fans were hoping to see him back in the side this weekend. But Dean Smith has revealed that the forward is yet to recover from his injury and will miss out vs the Magpies.
Apart from Watkins, Bertrand Traore is another player who will be unavailable for selection after he picked up a hamstring injury in matchweek one.
The manager told the press: “Ollie Watkins, I don’t expect to play. He’s not healed as quick as we would have liked so far.
“I’m hopeful that he’ll be back for Brentford. If not, he’ll definitely be back after the international break. He suffered a knee injury. I don’t know too much about what it was but we were hopeful he’d be ready for tomorrow, but I don’t expect him to play.
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“Bertrand Traore suffered a hamstring injury in the game last week, so he’s going to be out until just after the international break. Other than that, we’re fine.”
With Ollie Watkins set to return, everyone was expecting Dean Smith to use a 4-4-2 system on Saturday but now that he is ruled out, the manager is likely to use the same formation which he deployed vs Watford(Danny Ings as the lone centre-forward).
Ashley Young played on the left wing last weekend as summer signing Leon Bailey came off the bench. But we expect Bailey to get his first start on Saturday.
