Martin O’Neill is refusing to hit the panic button over Villa’s lack of summer signings.

Zat Knight this weekend became the fourth player to leave Villa, following Gareth Barry, Martin Laursen and Stuart Taylor, but only long-term injury victim Stewart Downing has so far arrived.

O’Neill now finds himself with a squad even smaller than the one he admitted needed beefing up last term, and, with the new Premier League season less than three weeks away, fans are becoming increasingly anxious over the absence of arrivals.

But the Villa chief, who saw his side slip to a 1-0 defeat to Malaga on Saturday, remains calm and has moved to assure supporters it is only a matter of time before he swoops, hinting Knight would not have been allowed to leave had a replacement not already been lined up.

“We are going to obviously improve the team,” said O’Neill. “If we’re going to improve this season then we would want some players in and I expect that to happen.

“We’re a couple of numbers down, but we’d hope to put that right. I wouldn’t be in the habit of letting people go if I didn’t think we could do something.

“I wouldn’t be getting overly concerned at this minute. We have a number of things we are working on and I would hope they’ll bear fruit soon.”