Richard Dunne: It's vital to beef up Villa squad

Richard Dunne today claimed that Villa's recent struggles on the pitch are a stark warning for next season as he prepares to rush himself back for tomorrow's clash with Albion.

The experienced centre-back has been a frustrated spectator since he sustained a fractured collarbone against Manchester City in February as Villa have plunged into a relegation battle.

With Villa boss Alex McLeish also fighting to save his job, Dunne has declared himself available for the match at The Hawthorns ahead of schedule and warned that lessons must be learned from this campaign.

"This needs to be a warning to everyone that we need the squad to grow, so that if there are injuries, then we have experienced cover," said Dunne.

"It is very difficult in the Premier League now because the sides who have been promoted recently are really good with strong squads. It has to be a warning.

"We have gone through a transitional period in the last year or two. Hopefully this is the start of something better for us but we're going through a little bit of a blip and we've got to finish this season off and then next season add to the squad we have got.

"Some big players have left recently. As a whole the squad's probably lost a bit of experience. We've been very lucky with the youth set-up and we have a lot of good young players coming through.

"But it would have been nice if we could play two or three of them and nine experienced players instead of eight or nine of them with two or three experienced players."

Dunne suffered relegation with former club Manchester City in 2001 and said: "It (relegation) would be terrible; it would be a disaster for the whole club. Nobody wants this on their CV."