Villa hoping injured five will return

Villa could welcome back a host of stars for Thursday's Europa League play-off trip to Rapid Vienna as caretaker boss Kevin MacDonald considers making changes.

Steve Sidwell (Achilles), Curtis Davies (knee), James Collins (calf), Gabby Agbonlahor (back) and Carlos Cuellar (hamstring) all hope to be back in contention to face the Austrians.

Young duo Marc Albrighton and Ciaran Clark both excelled in Saturday's 3-0 opening-day win over West Ham and MacDonald admits he has a potential selection headache.

He said: "One or two of the squad players who weren't available against West Ham might get a chance.

"It is going to be up to them show they are either as good as the ones that played or as good as the youngsters they know are coming in

"I think that is the big thing - one or two of the youngsters are starting to show their ability and some of the senior players are starting to get a bit nervous."

Villa jet out to central Europe tomorrow and MacDonald has targeted revenge for last year's defeat to the Austrians.

He added: "We'll go again and set things up for Thursday and hopefully we'll get the right result.

"We owe them one from last year and it would great for us to try to qualify for the group stage, which would give us more games to maybe blood the youngsters and give them experience."

MacDonald lifted the lid on Sidwell's absence on Saturday and added that Andreas Weimann had been selected ahead of Nathan Delfouneso on form.

He said: "Steve was injured from Valencia last week. He got a rake down his Achilles and only started training on Thursday. He's now got to be ready to travel to Vienna.

"Nathan's not scored for a couple of games, Andy had scored two goals in his last game at Walsall."