Aston Villa team news update and injury latest ahead of Newcastle clash
Unai Emery's Aston Villa face fellow Champions League hopefuls Newcastle United on Saturday (5:30pm kick-off)
Aston Villa have no fresh injury concerns ahead of their final training session before facing Newcastle United in the Premier League on Saturday night.
Unai Emery should have a full compliment of players to select from after Leon Bailey returned to the matchday squad for the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final against Paris Saint-Germain.
Villa head into the Newcastle game on the back of a 3–2 win over the French champions. However, it wasn’t enough to secure progression to the last four, as they were eliminated with a 5-4 aggregate defeat.
Ross Barkley made his first appearance since January during Villa’s win over PSG on Tuesday, having recovered from a knee injury several weeks ago.
"We are going to train this afternoon and to test the players, to see how they are for tomorrow," Emery said. "It is good news that in the last matches we recovered a lot of players.
"At the beginning every player is available, unless someone is feeling something or is more tired than normal. Tomorrow’s match is our objective and the level they have is similar to the PSG team."
Villa have lost five of their last six Premier League meetings with Newcastle - matching the number of defeats they suffered in their previous 16 encounters with the Magpies in the division.
Newcastle, meanwhile, have won their last three Premier League matches against Villa, scoring at least three goals in each.
The only team they’ve beaten more times consecutively while scoring three or more goals in every game is Tottenham.
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Aston Villa is marking its 150th anniversary with the launch of a new merch collection including shirts, hoodies, books, mugs and scarves.
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