Head coach Unai Emery spoke to members of the media at Bodymoor Heath on Thursday afternoon.
The Spaniard was quizzed on team news for the weekend’s fixture, Southampton and their captain James Ward-Prowse, and new signing Jhon Durán.
Here’s what he had to say…
On team news…
“Ludwig Augustinsson is ready, Lucas Digne is out, Matty Cash is ok as well and Ollie Watkins has trained normally yesterday and today. He will be ready for Saturday.
“Diego Carlos is still working alone but he is on the pitch. He’s progressing very well.
“John McGinn still has one or two weeks more until he starts training with us. I think he will be with us for the next match against Leicester.
“Everyone is good; they are training good and ready to play on Saturday.”
On Jhon Durán…
“He has potential as a striker if he can develop like we are thinking he will do.
“We can’t give him the responsibility, as a 19-year-old, to play as a striker in the Premier League against the best teams in the world.
“I want to help him firstly with his adaptation; hopefully that will happen quickly. I know that he’s coming as a 19-year-old and he will need time to know his teammates, our ideas, and playing against important players in every session here and against opposition teams.
“We are going to help him. The responsibility now, as a number nine and a striker, is for Watkins. We want to add him (Durán) to help us.
“I want to balance the squad by trying to get another striker but only with the idea to improve us.”
On Villa’s form…
“At the beginning, when a new coach comes in, everybody reacts very well. Being consistent in one month, two months, three months, six months, one year, two years, three years is very difficult.
“I want to be very demanding. I’m so happy because our reaction was very good from the players. We got victories and points that we needed in the table.
“I want to be so demanding to keep it up. In Southampton, it’s a new challenge and I’m not remembering the last two matches that we’ve played away and won; I’m remembering before why we didn’t get the points or performances away like I want.
“That is what I will repeat to help us improve and to be demanding.”
On Southampton…
“They are at the bottom of the table and they need points. They are signing players as well and they are going to do everything they can to beat us on Saturday.
“They have very good players and now they are being more consistent than before. They have a better structure, defensively and offensively, to be stronger than they were.
“They are in the best moment they’ve played in the Premier League this season.”
On James Ward-Prowse…
“Maybe he’s the best player on set-pieces in the world. I was speaking with Austin (MacPhee), our set-pieces coach, about how we will stop him.
“We will respect everyone in Southampton but from set-pieces we will have to be so clinical to stop them.
“We are also going to use our set-pieces to do good work against them.”