Aston Villa suffer major Jack Grealish blow before Man Utd clash | OneFootball

Aston Villa have suffered a major blow ahead of their Premier League clash against Manchester United on Sunday afternoon, with Dean Smith confirming that the game has come too soon for Jack Grealish.

Speaking in his pre-match press conference ahead of the game against the Red Devils, the Villa manager said: “It will be 12 games that he misses. He’s out on the grass loading the injury, so he’s on his way back, but this game will be too soon for him.

“He starts training with the actual group tomorrow. As I’ve said many times, we want him back as soon as possible, but we’ve got to do it right as well. We obviously had a spike in his loading last time and we had a reaction, so we have to make sure that we’re very conservative with our approach this time with it.”

The news comes as a major blow for Villa as the Premier League enters the closing stages of the season, with the Midlanders having understandably struggled in the absence of their talisman. In the 11 league games that Grealish has missed, Villa have won just three and scored only 12 goals in the process, putting a major dent in their hopes of securing a surprise European spot for next season.

With Manchester United flying high both domestically and in Europe – they clinched their place in the Europa League final on Thursday – Smith will have been hoping for some good news on Grealish to try and give his side a much-needed boost before the match.

It is a sign of his importance to their attack that his tally of 19 goal contributions (seven goals, 12 assists) is the joint-highest in the Villa squad alongside top scorer Ollie Watkins, per Transfermarkt.

Instead, Villa will have to try and stop Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side without the 25-year-old, and that’s a tall order given how poorly they’ve performed without him.

Last week’s win over Everton at Goodison Park will give them hope, but Smith will no doubt be disappointed at missing his key player once again.

Meanwhile, Villa must land this £60m-rated star this summer…