Karim El Ahmadi urged not to curtail his aggressive instincts
Paul Lambert today told Karim El Ahmadi not to curtail his aggressive instincts even though he will have to do without the tough-tackling midfielder against Sunderland.
El Ahmadi picked up his fifth booking of the season in the Capital One Cup victory over Swindon on Tuesday and will miss the trip to the Stadium of Light with a one-match suspension.
But Aston Villa boss Lambert does not want the Morocco international to back out of challenges for fear of further punishment from match officials.
"That's the line you tread but you can't curtail him," said Lambert, who will recall Fabian Delph to the starting line-up for the clash with the Black Cats.
"I think that is the way Karim plays. There is no point in me picking him if you tell him to hold off.
"He goes in for 50-50s and if they catch someone or are late, then you have to take the consequences of that."
Lambert will check on the fitness of several of his crocked defenders before the trip to the north east after makeshift centre-back Chris Herd limped out of the 3-2 win at Swindon with a knee injury.
Ciaran Clark (knee), Nathan Baker (ankle) and Richard Dunne (groin) are all on the treatment table although Joe Bennett will return from a one-match ban to come in at left-back.
"Chris has injured his knee. We don't know how bad it is yet," added Lambert.
"We've got to hope one of the lads, Ciaran or Nathan is okay. Ciaran is not looking to bad at the moment and Richard Dunne is not looking too bad either. We will see how they are before the weekend."
And Lambert insisted he is not daunted by a testing run of Premier League fixtures in November with games against the two clubs Manchester either side of a match with Arsenal.
"Every game is tough. You can't say one games is hard than another and prioritise them. Every game is tough, every game is hard," said Lambert.
"If I didn't think we could turn up and get some points there would be no point in playing, so we'll give it a go.
"It doesn't matter who you are up against because the Premier League is hard, really tough, but we'll go up there with a lot of confidence.
"The club is in a bit of a transition period but we'll do our best to get things up and running."