Short Term Loans An Option

Martin O’Neill is looking at sending some players out on short-term loan deals as Villa don’t play again until March 3 against Fulham.

The Villa boss said: ‘Championship clubs have asked about a couple of our players. Generally I wouldn’t consider loan moves away from Villa Park. The only reason I would consider it at the moment is because, if they did go away for a month the only game they would miss would be the Fulham one. But the deal would have to go through soon.’

Adding: ‘Normally speaking, if this ‘break’ had taken place at the end of November or the start of December I would have said it was great. At this minute, with us desperately keen to go out and win some football matches, I would say no. The bottom line is that we need to start turning some defeats into wins. We’re capable of doing that and we’re not a million miles away, but the fact is we need to start doing it.’

‘We play Fulham in three weeks, then we don’t play Arsenal until 14th March then we take on Liverpool four days later, then it’s the international break. We’ve basically got four fixtures now before the start of April. You would hardly credit that in a season that is unbelievably congested.’

Just don’t make Ridgewell go to Small Heath, people can only take so much in the way of humiliation!