Aston Villa · Friendlies · Midfielder · #44 · Switzerland · 20 yrs · Injured
Unai Emery has been nominated for the 2026 Ballon d'Or Men's Coach of the Year award. The Villa manager ended the club's 30-year wait for a trophy by winning the Europa League in May and delivered a fourth-place Premier League finish. Johan Manzambi, who signed from Freiburg in the summer for a club record fee of just over £50m, has also been nominated for Men's Young Talent of the Year.
Bournemouth forward Eli Junior Kroupi has been nominated for the Men's Young Talent of the Year award ahead of the 2026 Ballon d'Or ceremony. The 20-year-old is one of three Premier League players to be named in the 10-player shortlist, alongside Manchester City's Ayyoub Bouaddi and Aston Villa's Johan Manzambi. After making his Bournemouth debut in August 2025, Kroupi made 35 appearances and scored 13 goals across all competitions last season.
At the end of a busy transfer window which spanned the World Cup, here are some of the subplots of the summerThe World Cup is always a good shop window. Yan Diomande was already a rising star at RB Leipzig but shining for Côte d’Ivoire in the US helped push up his price tag before a £115.7m move to Real Madrid. There were other breakout stars: Switzerland’s Johan Manzambi, whose signature Aston Villa pipped Newcastle to; Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Kerim Alajbegovic, who went to Juventus; and Ghana’s Caleb Yirenkyi, who is now in the Premier League with Coventry. Cape Verde’s cult hero Vozinha now keeps net for the Chilean giants Colo-Colo and Morocco’s attacking dynamo, Ismael Saibari, has rocked up at Bayern. Billy Munday Continue reading...
PSG and Aston Villa face off in a blockbuster 2026 UEFA Super Cup final. Find out the confirmed lineups for this huge match here. Paris Saint-Germain and Aston Villa meet for the 2026 UEFA Super Cup, kicking off the European season before either side has played a domestic match. The clash goes ahead at the Stadion Salzburg in Austria, with kickoff set for 3:00 p.m. ET. Both clubs earned their place in Salzburg as continental champions. PSG lifted the Champions League after beating Arsenal on penalties in the final, while Aston Villa claimed the Europa League with a 3-0 win over SC Freiburg. Fitness will play a major role in how both managers set up. PSG entered the match with several key names — including Achraf Hakimi, Ousmane Dembélé, Désiré Doué, Bradley Barcola, Fabián Ruiz, Lucas Hernández and Warren Zaïre-Emery — all listed as doubtful, yet some of them will play either from the start or from the Bench. Aston Villa, meanwhile, will be without Leon Bailey, Chrislain Manzambi and André Onana entirely, while Emiliano Martínez, Ezri Konsa, and Ollie Watkins are all ruled out, as they are resting after their World Cup campaigns. Paris Saint-Germain 🆚 Aston Villa in Salzburg…⚽️ 21:00 CET, Wednesday 12 August 2026#SuperCup pic.twitter.com/KO8NY2P5RZ— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) August 10, 2026 PSG confirmed lineup With so many first-choice options unavailable, Luis Enrique is expected to lean on a mix of squad depth and academy talent behind a settled backline. The confirmed XI (4-3-3): Safonov; Hakimi, Marquinhos, Pacho, Mendes; Zaire-Emery, Vitinha, Neves; Akliouche, Doue, Kvaratskhelia. Aston Villa confirmed lineup With Martínez out for the game, Marco Bizot will start between the posts, while Brian Madjo will take the attack in place of Watkins. The projected XI (4-3-3): Bizot; Cash, Lindelof, Torres, Maatsen; Kamara, Gomes, Hemmings; Buendia, McGinn, and Madjo.
Aston Villa face PSG in the 2026 UEFA Super Cup final, where they'll be without Ollie Watkins and Ezri Konsa for the season's first final. Aston Villa will be without both Ezri Konsa and Ollie Watkins for Wednesday’s UEFA Super Cup clash against PSG, with manager Unai Emery confirming the pair — along with goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez — are out of the starting lineup. Speaking at Villa’s pre-match press conference on Tuesday, Emery explained the decision directly: “They are not here – Konsa, Watkins and Martínez because they finished their season on 19th July and I gave them four weeks to rest, it’s completely necessary. They are not here tomorrow”. The trio are missing not because of injury, but because they were given time off after extending their seasons deep into the 2026 World Cup. Both Watkins and Konsa went as far as the third-place match with England, while Martínez played all the way to the final, where Argentina fell to Spain. The Villa boss acknowledged the absences will be felt on the pitch, but pointed out that PSG face a similar situation with their own World Cup contingent. “Of course, if they were here, maybe we could have more chances. But, at the same time, I think PSG are going to be in the same situation like us,” Emery said. Paris Saint-Germain vs Aston Villa in the UEFA Super Cup — IT’S MATCHDAY 🏆 pic.twitter.com/KX4DtXjlaf— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) August 12, 2026 Emery turns to the group that trained through preseason Beyond the rest-related absences, Aston Villa also has a handful of players sidelined through actual injury. Leon Bailey is out with a muscular issue, while Chrislain Manzambi and André Onana are both dealing with knee problems. With so many absences, the Spaniard coach plans to rely on the group that’s been training together over the past month, including several younger players who have featured throughout preseason. “Tomorrow we are preparing this game with the players we started, even some young players, four weeks ago. And tomorrow I expect to compete and try to face them with our capacity and our possibilities as well to beat them,” he added.
TOM COLLOMOSSE: Barely two months after one of the greatest nights in their history, Aston Villa have lost two of their most important players and more are expected to follow.
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