Aston Villa manager Unai Emery faces a nervous wait to see if midfielder Boubacar Kamara will be available for the clash with Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
What’s the latest on Boubacar Kamara’s injury?
According to Birmingham Live reporter Ashley Preece, Emery is unsure whether French midfielder Kamara will be available for the upcoming home game against Forest as he recovers from an ankle injury.
Villa recorded their fifth win in six games with a 2-1 victory at the King Power Stadium against Leicester City on Tuesday night but were without Kamara after he suffered a recurrence of the ankle issue he picked up against Crystal Palace on the 4th of March.
The 23-year-old had returned for the Villans in the 2-0 win over Chelsea on Saturday evening but lasted just 45 minutes before Emery decided to withdraw him at half-time.
Elsewhere, due to a calf injury sustained while on international duty, right back Matty Cash remains sidelined for the trip to his former club.
The Polish international will have to watch from the stands at the City Ground with the hope of making a return to the squad for the match against Newcastle United on April 15th.
Philippe Coutinho also continues to be sidelined with a hamstring injury that he picked up during training in February.
The Brazilian midfielder has been out of action for six weeks but is expected to make a return later this month.
How big a blow would Villa losing Kamara be?
Despite continuing to record positive results in his absence, there is no doubt Villa are a better team with a fully fit and consistently starting Kamara in the side.
In the five games following the resumption of the Premier League after the World Cup break, Kamara averaged an impressive WhoScored rating of 6.89, showing the influence he has when regularly featuring for Emery’s men.
Even before the Spaniard’s arrival at Villa Park, former manager Steven Gerrard hailed the £150k-per-week man as “excellent” (via OneFootball).
Writing in his Foot Mercato column, French journalist Salim Baungally said there were questions over Kamara when he first moved to England from Marseille last summer, but the three-cap international ‘silenced those questions pretty quickly’.
With his patchy recent injury history, Emery must learn to operate without his key young midfielder, who cannot currently be relied on to be fit for every game, but there is no doubt he will be a big miss if unavailable against Forest.