Aston Villa monitor trio of injuries that forced international withdrawal

Aston Villa Football Club and manager Dean Smith will be sweating the fitness on a trio of key starters. Injuries to James Chester, Neil Taylor, and John McGinn all forced the withdrawal from their respective national teams.

Neil Taylor was not able to recover in time to join Wales’ two matches this FIFA international window. His injury, which forced him off at halftime against Derby County last Saturday, is muscular in nature and hopefully, his withdrawal will leave him rested and fit for Aston Villa’s upcoming matchup with Birmingham City in the Second City Derby.

Precautionary is also a word we hopefully use for two more injury developments.

Centre-back James Chester limped off for Wales in the 50th-minute in a UEFA Nations League qualifying match against Denmark. Replaced by Chelsea’s Ethan Ampadu, Chester walked off unassisted. It would be a huge blow for Villa if he misses any time, considering the lack of able replacements behind him in the position.

But that wasn’t all!

Villa’s own, John McGinn, withdrew from Scotland’s upcoming camp and matches after suffering a calf injury.

That’s uh, not good, considering McGinn’s play is predicated on hyper-pressing and lots of movement. Calf problems, too, are typically tricky to heal, sometimes lingering far longer than other muscular injuries. But at the same time, it could be nothing at all to worry about. Perhaps the player felt tightness and decided to be more safe than potentially sorry.

With these developments, Villa have just a few more international matches to bare. Jonathan Kodjia is in action on Sunday in AFCON qualifying vs. Guinea. Meanwhile, Conor Hourihane and Scott Hogan have a UEFA Nations League match for Ireland and Birkir Bjarnason has one friendly left vs. future World Cup hosts Qatar on Monday.