Warnock’s race to be fit for game
Monday 25th January 2010, 10:00AM GMT.
Villa defender Stephen Warnock is facing a race to be fit for Wednesday’s crunch league meeting with Arsenal after joining the mounting list of casualties.
Both Warnock (shin) and rookie winger Marc Albrighton (leg) were forced off in Saturday’s FA Cup win over Brighton – a game which saw Villa already without Emile Heskey (foot), Richard Dunne (hamstring), John Carew (knee) and Nigel Reo-Coker (ankle).
Boss Martin O’Neill remains hopeful Warnock will recover in time to tackle the Gunners, but admitted the injury is a concern.
The manager said: “Warnock’s been sore for a little while. He’s got a shin injury, he doesn’t remember getting hit on it but it’s really irking him. He will rest up for a day or two and see how he is for Wednesday.
“Ideally, I wouldn’t have minded him not playing, but at this minute Nicky Shorey is on loan at Forest and even if we’d got him back he would have missed it because he was sent off last week.”
One piece of good news was the return of Curtis Davies, who replaced Warnock, following a long-month lay-off – but O’Neill insists the player will not be allowed out on loan.
The Villa boss said: “We’ve had one little practice game for him and in an ideal world I’d have preferred him not to have come on, but it’s great, he’s delighted.
“I wouldn’t be in a position to be wanting to loan players out at this stage. The reason being that if you do it internationally – and Celtic and ourselves would be that – you’d have to do it for the whole season.
“While it would be great for some of the younger players to get maybe a month’s football, we may well need Curtis. A loan would be absolutely out of the question, especially for a season.”
UK Sport
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