{"id":958510,"date":"2026-05-14T04:23:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T04:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/958510\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T04:23:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T04:23:16","slug":"aston-villa-vs-liverpool-predicted-xi-for-unai-emerys-side-in-top-five-battle-at-villa-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/958510\/","title":{"rendered":"Aston Villa vs. Liverpool: Predicted XI for Unai Emery&#8217;s side in top-five battle at Villa Park"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsmole.co.uk\/people\/ollie-watkins\/\" title=\"Ollie Watkins\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ollie Watkins<\/a> will be aiming to continue his strong run of form when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsmole.co.uk\/football\/aston-villa\/\" title=\"Aston Villa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Aston Villa<\/a> welcome <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsmole.co.uk\/football\/liverpool\/\" title=\"Liverpool\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Liverpool<\/a> to Villa Park in the Premier League on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p>The England international has been involved in 12 goals in his last 13 appearances for Villa, scoring nine times in the process &#8211; form that is expected to lead to him securing a spot in the final Three Lions squad for the 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>Watkins will be bidding to add to the 12 Premier League goals that he has scored this season, with the 30-year-old set to lead the line at Villa Park.<\/p>\n<p>The hosts will again be missing\u00a0Boubacar Kamara (knee),\u00a0Alysson (groin) and Amadou Onana (calf) for Friday&#8217;s clash with Liverpool.<\/p>\n<p>No fresh injury problems have been reported, though, and head coach Unai Emery is set to name a strong XI for the Premier League fixture.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsmole.co.uk\/people\/emiliano-buendia\/\" title=\"Emiliano Buendia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Emiliano Buendia<\/a> has scored twice in his last three appearances and is expected to return to the starting side here, having dropped down to the bench against Burnley.<\/p>\n<p>Victor Lindelof has recently been operating in central midfield, and that is again expected to be the case here, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsmole.co.uk\/people\/john-mcginn\/\" title=\"John McGinn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">John McGinn<\/a> featuring in a wide area.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Aston Villa possible starting lineup:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Martinez; Cash, Konsa, Mings, Digne; Lindelof, Tielemans; McGinn, Rogers, Buendia; Watkins<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsmole.co.uk\/football\/liverpool\/top-four-race\/predicted-lineups\/isak-konate-wirtz-decisions-how-liverpool-could-line-up-against-villa_597460.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&gt; Click here to see how Liverpool could line up against Aston Villa<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ollie Watkins will be aiming to continue his strong run of form when Aston Villa welcome Liverpool to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":958511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,4230,393,68644,94,707,2826,4884,22138,7126,101,4151,93,68303,10938,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-958510","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-epl","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-formula-1","15":"tag-golf","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-olympics","19":"tag-premier-league","20":"tag-rugby","21":"tag-sport","22":"tag-sports-mole","23":"tag-teams","24":"tag-tennis","25":"tag-uk","26":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116571026606160594","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=958510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/958511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=958510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=958510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}