Unai Emery provides Marcus Rashford injury update with Aston Villa future in doubt

Aston Villa boss Unai Emery hopes Marcus Rashford can play again this season but does not want to address his long-term future yet.

Rashford suffered a hamstring injury in the build-up to last week’s FA Cup semi-final defeat to Crystal Palace and Emery has ruled him out for “weeks”.

With only four Premier League matches remaining, starting with Fulham’s visit to Villa Park on Saturday, there were fears that he would not feature again before his loan spell from Manchester United.

But Emery raised the prospect he could return in time to help Villa achieve their target of Champions League qualification.

“For tomorrow, he is not available,” Emery said. “He is working his comeback as soon as possible, but it is still weeks to be available or not with us for the rest of the season.

“Of course, there are four weeks and hopefully he will play with us one or two matches.

“Tomorrow, Fulham. Tomorrow, Fulham. We don’t want to finish the season. We don’t want holiday.

“We want to play. And hopefully he can help us. And of course, he’s recovering with us here.

“I want to see him happy. Play, get our objective and then, of course, we will speak about everything.”

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Villa’s Champions League hopes were boosted by Nottingham Forest’s defeat to Brentford on Thursday night and they could draw level on points with Forest and Chelsea with a win.

“Every match is important to win,” Emery said. “The day one, the day 30 and the day 35 tomorrow.

“And be consistent, trying to get our best is the challenge we have. And tomorrow how we can respect them, how we can adapt to them, how we can impose, dominate our game plan through our positioning, through our player skills and our wishes.

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“And still four matches to play. Tomorrow we will play three points.

“And our moment now in the Premier League is the objective we were dreaming two years ago.

“We were setting as an objective this year, but always been ambitious to be in Europe, to play in the Conference League, to play in the Europa League, to play in the Champions League.”

PA