Aston Villa injury news: Unai Emery boost as Sweden boss comments on Victor Lindelof "situation"

Aston Villa have been handed a boost by the news that Victor Lindelof is in line to earn playing time for Sweden during the October international break.

During the closing hours of the summer transfer window, Villa pulled off a coup by signing the Manchester United defender on a free transfer.

However, the 31-year-old's lack of pre-season has left him limited to just 25 minutes of football across four matches.

As such, Unai Emery will be looking ahead as to when he can take a risk on Lindelof from the start in order to fully integrate him into the squad.

While it could be argued that the international break has come at the wrong time for the player, comments made by Sweden manager Jon Dahl Tomasson suggest otherwise.

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Tomasson hints at Lindelof minutes

As quoted by Fotbollskanalen, Tomasson has acknowledged that Lindelof will not be able to play a full game for his nation at this stage, yet he suggests that the 71-cap international will earn minutes over the next week.

Tomasson said: "We have some players who have some physical problems that we need to look at and we have some players who have problems with their match form. We have Victor Lindelöf who hasn’t played much the last four months.

“He won’t be able to play 90 minutes. But we’ll look into it. Then you can always help the team in different ways.

"Regardless of whether you start or not. Not an optimal situation but I’m happy to have him back in the squad with his leadership. He won’t play 90 minutes anyway.”

Sweden face two important World Cup qualifiers at home to Switzerland and Kosovo having only taken one point from games with Slovenia and the latter in September.

Lindelof featured in neither of those games, increasing his chances of being brought back into the team or introduced as a substitute.

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Possible Villa chances for Lindelof?

With Villa having been eliminated from the EFL Cup, Lindelof's best chances of game time for Villa are against Go Ahead Eagles and Maccabi Tel-Aviv in the Europa League on October 23 and November 6 respectively.

Villa's next three Premier League matches are versus Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City and Liverpool respectively, fixtures in which Emery will likely show preference to other players.