Aston Villa ramp up preparations ahead of playoff semi-final

Aston Villa continue preparations for Saturday’s home leg of the EFL Championship play-off semi-finals.

Villa’s scorching late season run under manager Dean Smith sees the club in the play-offs for a second year running. The claret and blues next victim? None other than local neighbors and rival West Bromwich Albion.

At one point the Baggies led the league by a sizable margin, but the loss of Harvey Barnes in January and eventual firing of Darren Moore preceded a downturn in results. Caretaker manager James Shan buoyed the club into a 4th-place finish and date with Villa.

The club released a few training ground pictures from its official Twitter account:

Tammy Abraham looks fit and happy, for what it’s worth. Alongside him are Tyrone Mings, Jonathan Kodjia, Conor Hourihane and Smith. With Jack Grealish, Anwar El Ghazi, John McGinn and Ahmed Elmohamady all rested at the weekend, Villa go into the first leg with a huge advantage. West Brom had to field an A-team against Derby (sans Chris Brunt) in an eventual 3-1 defeat to Frank Lampard’s Rams.

And, to make matters worse, Albion lost substitute attacker Hal Robson-Kanu for the remainder of the season. The Wales international was sent-off in the final minutes last weekend.

Obviously, this is not as huge a loss as some other players would be, but it is one less option for Shan to choose from over two legs. It would be the equivalent of Villa losing, say, Keinan Davis or Kodjia.

As the play-offs commence, the club continues to prepare for seasons beyond. A report linked here states Villa “have joined the race” for German under-18 forward Erkan Eyibil.

It’s nothing more than due diligence at the moment, but I expect Villa to cast a wide net in terms of signing more young players. Most of the under-23s who are out-of-contract will be let go in the coming weeks.