Emile Heskey has warned Wigan there will be no room for sentiment as record-breaking Villa bid to go second.

Just a week after leaving the Latics for Villa, £3.5million signing Heskey will make his home debut against Steve Bruce’s side in the eagerly-anticipated tussle.

The game offers Martin O’Neill’s men, who are three points clear of Ron Saunders’ title winners’ equivalent tally after 23 games in 1981, the chance to leapfrog Liverpool and Chelsea into second ahead of Sunday’s clash between the pair.

Heskey revealed he has already been the subject of some wind-ups from his former team-mates, but he insists the joking will end when he crosses the white line.

He said: “There’s been a lot of banter flying about as I’ve only been gone a week! I’ve had a couple of calls already. Wigan were good to me. I still like everyone there and the chairman has done a great job getting them to where they are.

“But it’s a case of me being professional and doing my job. We want to go out there and put in a good performance.

“We just want to keep the pressure on everyone. By keeping winning we keep the pressure on.”

O’Neill has urged his side, now unbeaten in 11 games, to go for the throat against a Latics side Wigan and seize the chance to move second.

He said: “We have to take the game to Wigan from the outset, we will have to play very strongly. They are on a decent run. We know it will be hard but we know that about every game we go into.

“Our run of results would suggest we have a resilience about us but you only have to look at the game against Doncaster to realise how fragile our position can be – and how quickly things can change.”