Remi Garde has urged Aston Villa to stick together as they begin a 15-match bid to salvage their Barclays Premier League status with a trip to West Ham United. Villa were left to focus solely on their plight at the foot of the table on Saturday after Manchester City beat them 4-0 to end their participation in the FA Cup.
Garde has urged for a response from his players, who are unbeaten in their previous three top-flight matches and drew 1-1 with the same opponents on Boxing Day. “We need to stick together for the last 15 games,” he said.
“It will be a Premier League game again. We will keep focus on this huge target we have. “It will be a different match for sure. Hopefully, we won’t start badly like [against City].”
Garde found himself light in terms of strikers at the weekend, handing Gabriel Agbonlahor the second appearance of his tenure as Libor Kozak and Rudy Gestede recovered from injuries on the sidelines.
“Hopefully one of the two will be fit for the Tuesday game,” Garde said. “Rudy injured his hamstring against West Brom and Libor received a bad kick on his ankle in this game.” Garde’s opposite number Slaven Bilic has his own problems in attack, with Andy Carroll nursing a hamstring complaint and Diafra Sakho and Manuel Lanzini battling muscular strains. James Tomkins will miss the match having received stitches in a facial injury sustained during Saturday’s 0-0 FA Cup draw at Liverpool, although Bilic is hopeful Cheikhou Kouyate can overcome a knock then ended his afternoon early at Anfield.
West Ham are also set to make a late call on their starting goalkeeper after Darren Randolph deputised in the cup tie for Adrian, who travelled to Seville for the birth of his first child. “Adrian still travelled up with us [to Liverpool] but he had to leave first thing on Saturday,” he told www.whufc.com. “I told him to let me know if there are developments. I will keep in touch with him to see how he is going.”
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