Christian Benteke set for Aston Villa return

Aston Villa striker Christian Benteke could make his long-awaited return from injury against champions Manchester City.

The Belgian hitman has been out since April with an Achilles injury but Villa boss Paul Lambert believes the star forward is closing in on a playing return.

The 23-year-old only returned to training recently, but Lambert revealed he may be ready in time to face City a week tomorrow.

He said: "Christian is getting closer. Next week we will see how he is for the Man City game. I'm not saying he'll start, or anything, but he's certainly getting close."

Lambert has a clean bill of health for tomorrow's trip to Stamford Bridge, after his squad was laid low by a virus before last weekend's 3-0 defeat by Arsenal.

He said: "We closed the training ground down on Monday and some of the lads still came back feeling a bit groggy on Tuesday.

"Today they felt a lot better so hopefully it's out of their system. Everybody's trained, so we should get a clean bill of health for tomorrow."

He added: "We don't know where it came from. Lads were just going down all the time. I've never known it where lads are throwing up on the morning of a game.

"Ashley Westwood was sick in the warm-up, Nathan Baker, Darren Bent and Andreas Weimann were at half-time, we were really struggling.

"It's not an excuse but it's a fact. We weren't at 100 per cent."

Meanwhile, defender Alan Hutton has hailed the impact of assistant boss Roy Keane in the Villa dressing room since his arrival this summer.

The Scottish international said: "Roy has freshened things up by coming into the club with a lot of new ideas.

"He's such a calming influence, which is what we need during a very tough Premier League campaign."