Matt Maher: Bad luck? The reason for Aston Villa's injury woes may be much more simple
Has someone at Bodymoor Heath recently broken a mirror?
Did Unai Emery walk under a ladder, or open an umbrella indoors?
From a distance you wouldn’t consider Villa as a particularly unlucky club. Competing again in the top half of the Premier League, a more than winnable FA Cup fifth round tie on the horizon and through to the last-16 of the Champions League - there are 80-something rivals in the country who would gladly swap places with Emery’s men.
But theirs is also a season being played against the backdrop of a chronic injury crisis which you fear, at some point, could derail it.
When Ezri Konsa went off in the first half of last weekend’s Cup win over Tottenham, it was the fourth match running Villa had lost a player to injury before the start of the second half. With Tyrone Mings and Pau Torres already absent and new signing Axel Disasi ineligible for the match, it left Emery without a recognised senior centre-half and forced to play two midfielders, Boubacar Kamara and Lamare Bogarde, at the back for the remainder of the game.
Both performed well but at the top level temporary solutions will only last for so long. Kamara, one of Villa’s best performers of the season in his more recognised position, has experienced fluctuating fortunes in three appearances at the back so far. Excellent in the Champions League against Celtic, he found things far tougher in the derby defeat at Wolves just a few days later.
Villa’s injury troubles might not be so obvious to the casual observer as last season when Kamara, Mings and Emi Buendia all missed lengthy periods with serious knee injuries, the latter pair for virtually the entire campaign.
