Villa return to training today with manager Martin O’Neill’s fingers crossed the bug which sidelined Gabby Agbonlahor on Sunday finds no more victims.

Agbonlahor, who missed the weekend FA Cup triumph over Reading with a stomach upset, was absent from the last training session on Monday but is hopeful to be fit to face Stoke on Saturday following a couple of days’ rest.

O’Neill revealed physio Stuart Walker has also been laid low with the virus this week and the Villa boss desperately hopes his players will return with no further casualties.

He said: “Gabby was pretty ill on Sunday and missed training on Monday. I’m hoping it’s one of those 48-72 hour viruses or something like that.

“One of our physios, Stuart Walker, has gone down with something similar so I’m hoping this won’t be spreading around the team for the weekend. We’ll see how it goes.”

If Agbonlahor is passed fit, O’Neill faces a major selection headache after replacement John Carew bagged a hat-trick against the Royals.

Until then, the Holte End favourite had endured an indifferent campaign and O’Neill has challenged the Norway star to finish the season with a flourish and become Villa’s penalty-box predator.

The manager said: “John will hopefully put all sorts of things behind him now and charge on with a second wind throughout the last part of the season.

“People have told us that we haven’t got a natural goalscorer in the side – and they cost an awful lot of money.

“What we’ve had to try to do is to get goals from other areas of the field and, for the most part that has stood us in good stead.

“I always feel that there’s goals in the team. We had a flurry of goals on Sunday and a couple of weeks ago against Burnley.

“It would be great if in our hour of need we had somebody who was able to step up and score a couple of tap-ins from inside the six-yard box.

O’Neill insists FA Cup semi-final opponents Chelsea, whom Villa will face at Wembley on Saturday 10 April at 5pm, should fear his team.

He said: “I don’t think Chelsea will relish playing us. We are very capable of winning the game, no question.”