Aston Villa: James Collins battles to rejoin fray

Dec 9 2009 By Mat Kendrick

JAMES Collins is set to hand Villa a defensive boost ahead of Saturday’s trip to Old Trafford by returning to training tomorrow after overcoming a groin injury.

Collins is hoping to be back in contention after missing Villa’s last five games with the problem he picked up against former club West Ham at the start of last month.

Manager Martin O’Neill also confirmed that midfielder Craig Gardner was making good progress with a back problem ahead of the visit to Manchester United.

“James is improving,” said O’Neill.

“He still hasn’t done any work with us yet, but I’m hoping he’ll be able to join in, maybe with a bit of luck, on Thursday.

“He’s feeling much, much better. The groin seems to have eased a great deal and the calf problem he suffered seems to be not bad at all.

“He has done some running on his own today under the guidance of the physios with Craig Gardner, who had a bad back on Saturday.

“He was complaining of being pretty sore, went for a scan but it has shown nothing too significant. I’m hopeful that they should be all right in a day or two.

“He is feeling much, much better with the groin but he has to get out on to the field of play.”

Villa have coped admirably without Collins with Carlos Cuellar excelling alongside Richard Dunne in the centre of the claret and blue backline.

And with Collins short of match fitness the Welsh defender could face a battle to regain his place despite being in fine form before his injury lay-off.

“James has had a great start here,” added O’Neill.

“It’s been particularly frustrating for him. I don’t think he would have anticipated walking off at West Ham that he wouldn’t have played another game for us now for this number of weeks. Would match fitness be an issue? I suppose that’s something we’d look at. He’s had a great start and obviously he’s very keen to get back into some sort of action soon.

“We have kept going without him which has been very encouraging. If players stay fit it’s nice to have those options. Those options weren’t available to us at the start of the season so from that viewpoint it’s very encouraging.”