Unai Emery confirms Aston Villa injury absence for Preston North End as quartet welcomed back

Preston North End will go up against an almost fully fit Aston Villa on Sunday afternoon.

The Lilywhites host Unai Emery’s side at 1:30pm in the FA Cup quarter-finals. While PNE are short on numbers for the contest, for a variety of reasons, the Premier League outfit are in good shape. Ollie Watkins is bac k in the fold after overcoming a minor issue.

A focus for Villa this week has been getting international quartet Emi Martinez, Robin Olsen, Andres Garcia and Leon Bailey back up to speed. One player the Champions League quarter-finalists will be without in Lancashire is former Everton and Chelsea midfielder, Ross Barkley - who has a knee problem. Chelsea loan defender Axel Disasi is also cup tied.

“We are recovering players,” said Emery in his pre-match press conference on Thursday afternoon. “The only player not available for tomorrow is Barkley. Of course, we are going to train in the afternoon. The players joining us today - Garcia, Olsen, Martinez, and Bailey - let’s see how they are physically.

“Hopefully, we can have the players we have now available for the final two months. We were in Dubai for a few days (over the break) and we worked fantastically, with the players we had. I think we needed to use that time to build consistency with the group we were working with.

“This week we’ve been reintegrating the returning players, and we’ve worked well. Of course, they need to quickly reintegrate into our structure, mentality, and style of play. The key now is to quickly refocus on our objective for the next match. Sunday is very important.

“Last year we finished the season so, so tired. A lot of players injured, not enough energy, and we lost the last match against Crystal Palace away. This year my objective and my idea and how we are now planning the rest of the season is to try to be full energy again - and every player focusing individually and collectively on the objective we are going to face.”

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