Aston Villa face Newcastle United on Saturday in what could be classified as the first game of the Unai Emery era.
The Spanish manager has now been appointed as the Aston Villa boss, but he won’t yet start his new role for a few days yet, so Aaron Danks will continue to take charge here.
Emery, instead, will be watching from the stands at St James’ Park this weekend where he’ll get to have a first look at his squad in action.
It will be interesting to see whether or not Emery does actually have any input on team selection here, but with the new manager not officially starting until November 1, he will probably be letting Danks get on with his job here.
With that in mind, we’ve had a go at predicting Aston Villa’s starting XI for this one.
We don’t think that Danks will make a single change from the team that beat Brentford 4-0 last weekend.
As the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it and after a 4-0 win under a caretaker manager, we can’t imagine any changes being made here.
Emi Martinez starts in goal, while Ashley Young and Matty Cash start at full-back.
Ezri Konsa and Tyrone Mings keep their places at centre-half, while Leander Dendoncker and Douglas Luiz start in the heart of the midfield.
Ollie Watkins, Emi Buendia and Leon Bailey play just behind Danny Ings as the former Southampton striker looks to continue his good form.
Unfortunately for Emery, he may not get a chance to see Philippe Coutinho start from the off here, which is a bit of a shame as the new Villa boss has previously described Coutinho as a ‘splendid’ player prior to joining Villa.
The Villans will be hoping to continue their good form and get another win here as they look to make their poor start under Steven Gerrard nothing but a distant memory.
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