Aston Villa manager Unai Emery stood firm on his team selection despite a 2-1 defeat to Crystal Palace in the Carabao Cup. The match saw Villa fall behind early when Eberechi Eze headed past Joe Gauci in the eighth minute. Although Jhon Duran equalized for Villa 15 minutes later, a mistake from Diego Carlos led to Daichi Kamada scoring the winning goal for Crystal Palace with 30 minutes remaining. Throughout the match, Emery chose to rest many key players, such as Ollie Watkins, Ross Barkley, Emi Martinez, Pau Torres, Morgan Rogers, Youri Tielemans, Amadou Onana, Lucas Digne, and Ezri Konsa. However, the game provided an opportunity for Tyrone Mings and Boubacar Kamara to shine in their first starts since returning from ACL injuries.
In the post-match press conference, Unai Emery addressed his decision to rotate the squad:
Unai Emery said, “We started with 11 players in the squad in the first team. We started with Tyrone Mings, Diego Carlos, they can play normally in the starting XI playing against [teams like] Bayern Munich. We started with Maatsen and Kosta, we signed them to be in the squad to play in matches like that. We started with McGinn, Kamara, Bailey, Jaden, Jhon Duran and Emi Buendia. Today was the match to start playing with Tyrone Mings and to start playing with Kamara. We played one week ago against Bologna in the Champions League. Last year as well we focused the season trying to be intelligent and trying to be strong. This year is the same. We are with our way, building the team and our structure. The structure is for all the season. I am disappointed and frustrated, but if I repeated this match 100 times, I would play the same players.”
