Beef Bergers Still Allowed At Villa

Martin O’Neill says the door is still open for former Czech Republic international midfielder Patrik Berger.

The 33-year-old former Liverpool and Portsmouth player reminded the club he was back following a loan spell at Stoke by scoring an outstanding goal in the reserves game last night.

O’Neill said: ‘The situation with Berger is that he is back here now, obviously he has apologised for what had happened. His agent had mentioned about the possibility of him going somewhere abroad for the last few months, if that materialises, fine. If not, then he just gets his head down here and the team will get picked on merit as far as I am concerned. If he is doing well enough, then he will be back in contention.’

Adding, on the official site: ‘His concern was that I had said somewhere, I didn’t actually but I was quoted somewhere, that ‘he will never kick another ball for this club’. I said that I never said that. And I said to him that of I did I would have said it to you first, Patrik.