Aston Villa injury news and return dates ahead of pre-season

The Aston Villa squad will soon be back in training as they step up their preparations for the 2022/23 Premier League season.

The fixtures for the new season were released this week with Villa facing a trip to the south coast to take on newly-promoted AFC Bournemouth in their opening game on August 6. Eyes will be on that fixture as players arrive for pre-season training.

The full squad return to Bodymoor Heath on Monday, July 4 as they undergo pre-season training drills and fitness tests. Steven Gerrard's men will then play travel to Walsall for their first pre-season game just five days later.

Other matches in pre-season will see Villa fly to Australia to take on Leeds United, Brisbane Roar and Manchester United. The squad will finish their pre-season schedule against French side Rennes on July 30.

When the players do make their way back for pre-season, who and who won't be available to undergo a full fitness regime ahead of the new season? Here's the latest injury news from Bodymoor Heath...

Knee

August/September 2022

The centre-back went down against Crystal Palace at the end of last season after a clash with Jean-Philippe Mateta and was replaced by Calum Chambers. Steven Gerrard has confirmed that Konsa will be a long-term absentee.

May 18th: “Ezri, it’s been confirmed that he’s got a bad knee issue so he’ll be out for anything between 12 to 16 weeks, which isn’t great news. We were quite relieved because we thought we were dealing with an ACL but, thankfully, it’s not that. He should return, all being well, at the back-end of August, beginning of September."

That means that the defender is expected to be unavailable for Villa's early games of the season when they kick off their season against Bournemouth. Konsa