Aston Villa will take advantage of the international break to face Elche CF in a friendly this month.
On Sunday, the Villans secured a 2-0 Premier League win over West Ham United at Villa Park. John McGinn opened the scoring in the 15th minute before Ollie Watkins doubled the lead in the second half.
Aston Villa dominated against the Hammers and had better possession [59%], more shots [22-7], shots on target [7-1] and better pass accuracy [91%-82%] than their opponent.
The result was crucial for Unai Emery’s side for multiple reasons. On February 11th, Aston Villa secured a 1-0 win over Brighton & Hove Albion and then lost four of their next five league matches.
A victory over West Ham saw Unai Emery’s side end their five-match winless streak and improve their chances of Champions League qualification. They are fourth, a point behind third placed Manchester United and ahead of fifth and sixth placed Liverpool and Chelsea respectively.
Emery will see several of his players travel to join their respective national teams during this international break. A few have friendlies while others have World Cup qualifiers.
For example: Aston Villa’s Victor Lindelöf has a World Cup qualifier against Ukraine later this week. His omission from the squad against West Ham has raised concerns back in Sweden.
Aston Villa travel to Spain
Monday’s edition of AS reports the Birmingham club will take advantage of the break and travel to Spain.
Emery will only have those players who haven’t received a call-up, but will also include some youngsters in his squad.
The Premier League side have a training camp at Muricia’s Pinatar Arena. This is 70km away from Elche’s home stadium.
They will take advantage of this trip to face the La Liga side in a friendly on Friday.
Infobae also report on the friendly between Aston Villa and Elche on Friday at the Pinatar Arena. However, the outlet state the former haven’t confirmed this yet.
Friendly can be beneficial for Emery & co.
The English club are in battle to qualify for the Champions League and have two ways to achieve it.
The first is via the league route, by finishing in the top five, and the other by winning the Europa League. To do this, Aston Villa first need to overcome Bologna in the quarter-final.
Aston Villa have nine matches left this season. It’ll be more if they make it to the last four of the European competition. The friendly behind closed doors against Elche allows them to maintain their rhythm and fitness, ahead of the busy schedule.
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