Aston Villa welcome Arsenal to Villa Park in the Premier League on Saturday.
And ahead of taking on Mikel Arteta's men, the head coach took questions from the media at Bodymoor Heath on Friday afternoon.
Here's what he had to say...
On team news...
“Lucas Digne will miss the game tomorrow. He’s nursing a hamstring issue. I don’t think the issue is too big, so he won’t be out for too long.
“He’ll join up and be assessed by France, having been called up. I think he’ll be a big doubt for the first game and an outside chance for their second game. He’ll obviously miss tomorrow’s game for us.
“Marvelous Nakamba will be in full training for us after the international break, which is positive. He’s not too far away and he’ll do certain sessions with our Under-23 group next week.
“We’ll integrate him into the first team set-up. That’s good news for us.
“Kortney Hause has got an abdominal issue and he’ll be missing tomorrow as well.”
On England’s latest squad…
“Listening to what Gareth Southgate said, JJ (Jacob Ramsey) was certainly very close. He’s got eyes on him and he’s watching him very closely, that should be exciting for JJ.
“There are still games left this season and he’s very young, so there’s time to impress all the England staff. I believe it will only be a matter of time because that’s the type of talent we’re talking about.
“He’s named a really exciting England squad with a good mix of experience and up-and-coming young talent. What he’s done is show the younger players that if they perform well in the league they’ll get an opportunity. That’s very exciting for Jacob and our other young players.
“In terms of Ollie Watkins, Danny Ings and other people who haven’t made the squad, the only way to get back in is to play well at club level, score goals consistently and perform well enough so that when the next squad’s named, you might force your way back in.”
On playing Arsenal…
“Every game is very different. The game we lost against West Ham, we had to be better in the final third. We take a lot of our play from building up and creating in the middle of the pitch, and we took a lot of positives from the game with the things we did.
“I thought our reaction to going a couple of goals down was very good, we created a couple of chances after that, but we’ve conceded a couple of sloppy goals. The takeaway was that we can’t give the ball away in silly areas and we need to defend our box better.
“Arsenal are in great form since September and I think Mikel Arteta’s done a fantastic job. He’s really found that consistency that Arsenal have been looking for for a long time.
“Credit to him for that. This game will be different tactically to West Ham. We need to try and find the solutions and a game plan ready for this fixture.
“I’m not sure it’ll look too similar to West Ham because we’re talking about two different styles and two different teams.”
On Mikel Arteta…
“He’s come through a couple of periods where the pressure was certainly on him and his team. You’ve got to give people at Arsenal credit for supporting him, backing him and giving him the time to stamp his identity and philosophy on how he wants the team to play.
“With that time and with that support, they’ve grown, improved and got better. Now, they’re showing everyone what a consistent and strong team they can be.
“They’ve got some real top talents within the team. Defensively, they’ve improved. Set-piece wise, they’ve improved. Credit to the coach and his coaching staff.”
