ALEX McLeish hopes James Collins will be fit to return to face West Brom on Saturday after ordering extra set-piece defending practice in training this week.

A groin strain cost Collins a place in the 4-1 defeat at Manchester City, which included two soft concessions from corners.

“It was a loss not having James,” said McLeish. “But when you have a player like him out, it’s important that you have good back-up.

“Ciaran Clark is good back-up. Carlos Cuellar was on the bench. He’s not far away from fitness and he’s a very experienced defender.

“James had a wee nick on his groin. We did a fitness test with him on Friday and he was clearly troubled by it. We don’t think it’s too bad, but you never know. I don’t want to count my chickens.”

McLeish was furious with how Villa’s “comedy cuts” defending allowed Mario Balotelli and Vincent Kompany to score City’s first and third goals from corners.

“I said to them, ‘You’ve done extremely well up until Saturday, but we can’t afford to defend like that at set-pieces’,” he said. “It’s a crying shame to start the game as well as we did and then end up losing goals like that. If it’s Manchester City or an amateur team, you’ll still lose goals if you’re not organised at set-pieces.

“Every other team will look at the scoreline and think City must have cut Villa to ribbons, but they didn’t. When they see the goals they’ll just think it’s horrendous defending.