Steven Gerrard spoke to members of the local and national press on Wednesday afternoon ahead of tomorrow’s game against Burnley.
The Aston Villa head coach was asked questions on the Villa Park finale, team news, facing Burnley and much more.
Here’s what he had to say…
On team news…
“Ezri Konsa’s had a scan and it’s confirmed that he’s got a knee injury. He’ll be missing for up to 16 weeks.
“The ‘keeper, Emi, has got a small issue, but we’re hoping he’s going to pull through.”
On Konsa’s injury, Gerrard added: “When someone leaves the pitch, and you see the challenge and it’s very close to you, you fear that it could be an ACL and a six to nine-month injury.
“Thankfully, it wasn’t. It’s an injury quite similar to [Marvelous] Nakamba’s injury. We managed to get Nakamba back after 14 weeks, but the timescale’s more between 12 and 16 weeks.
“If you are going to sustain an injury as a player, it’s not the worst time in the world – even though there’s never a good time – because he won’t miss much football.”
On Burnley…
“I’m not sure how Burnley are going to approach it, whether they’re going to come with the attitude of ‘it’s a must-win game’ or whether they’ll come with the attitude that a point might be enough for them.
“My focus is on us. We’ll be aggressive, we’re at home. We played at Burnley recently and we played extremely well and we won the game comfortably.
“We’ll definitely respect that Burnley are going to be the best version of themselves and it will definitely be a challenge.
“We know their strengths. They’ve been really strong under the new manager, and they’ve given themselves a decent chance of survival.
“They’re going to be all in and they’re going to empty it at Villa Park, so we need to compete and match that in all departments and hopefully our quality will come through.”
On squad rotation…
“I’ve got to get the balance right. I think we’ve been more than fair with the opportunities we’ve given people and we’ve tried to look at everyone.
“The games (final two fixtures) are so close together and we will have had five games in 15 days by the time they’re gone, so we’ve tried to subtly tweak it and change it to keep it fresh.
“We’ll do the same over the next two games and put two sides out that are capable of getting points in both games.”
On the final home game of the season…
“We want to send our supporters, who’ve been incredible since I walked in the door, away happy, satisfied, so we want to put in a performance that’s good enough to get three points.
“We won’t see the home support for some time, so it’s important that we send them away in the right place.”
On being consistent…
“It’s a challenge for me and everyone connected to the club. We’re new to the position, even though we’ve been here five months.
“We’ve analysed a lot, we know where we are, we know what we need to do and we know where these players need support and help. My job is to try and get them that.
“One thing that’s for sure is that we’re working tirelessly and that we’ll leave no stone unturned in terms of being relentless to improve the team and the squad to make sure we’re more competitive next year.”
