Calum Chambers may have last chance to save Aston Villa career v AZ Alkmaar despite Matty Cash injury update
Aston Villa defender Calum Chambers may be handed a last chance to save his career at Villa Park against AZ Alkmaar on Thursday (9 November) as Unai Emery may be tempted to rest Matty Cash despite his injury boost.
Injury Expert Ben Dinnery sharing in his Premier League Injuries table (7 November), placed the Polish international’s fitness status for Thursday’s game at Villa Park at 25% after he was withdrawn inside 60 minutes during their 2-0 Nottingham Forest defeat with a shoulder injury.
However, Cash was spotted at Bodymoor Heath training with the squad on Wednesday afternoon (8 November), with The Athletic journalist also confirming, via his personal Twitter account that the Pole will be available for their crucial Europa Conference League clash with the Dutch giants.
The Villans will be looking to secure their place in the Europa Conference League knockout stages when they take on the Dutch giants at Villa Park on Thursday (9 November), currently sitting second in their group, level on points with Legia Warsaw.
However, Emery will have a crucial decision to make on his only specialist right-back on Thursday, with a crucial game against Fulham to come on Sunday (12 November) in the Premier League.
The Spaniard will certainly not want to risk his key right-back for Thursday knowing that a draw or a win for them could well secure their place in the knockout rounds and Emery may well look to provide Chambers with a rare appearance at Villa Park.
The former Arsenal and Fulham defender has made just two starts this season [Transfermarkt], both coming in Europe and one of those appearances was another in which he struggled, in the 3-2 defeat to Legia Warsaw.
Since then, Chambers has been nowhere to be seen again in Emery’s starting line-up, capping off an incredibly difficult year at Villa Park.
In his 17 games at Villa Park last season, Chambers only made just two starts and was a regular benchwarmer after Emery was appointed back in November.
In those games, Chambers didn’t contribute to any clean sheets which is made all the more telling given Ezri Konsa and Tyrone Mings, when paired together, during Emery’s tenure helped themselves to nine clean sheets [WhoScored].
The worrying numbers don’t stop there too.
The 28-year-old only averaged 0.5 tackles per game, 0.6 tackles, won just 47% of his ground duels and a disastrous 33% of his aerial duels, as per SofaScore which made him an unreliable commodity in the Aston Villa defence.
Even with Tyrone Mings out injured for the long haul, Emery will always turn to Diego Carlos, Ezri Konsa and Pau Torres over Chambers and the reason he features at right-back is simply because Emery has no specialist replacement for Cash.
However, there could still be a role for him on Thursday should Emery choose to rest Cash for the game and it may well be Chambers’ last chance to save his career at the club, otherwise an inevitable exit in January could well be pursued by all parties.
The ball is well and truly in his court.
In other Aston Villa news, one Villa star is in the “form of his career” this season.