Cuellar coming to Villa's defence against Liverpool

Aston Villa's recent signing Carlos Cuellar could finally make his debut in Sunday's Premier League game against Liverpool at Villa Park. The £7.8m signing from Rangers has returned to full training after a calf injury.

The Spaniard was ineligible for last night's Uefa Cup game against Hafnarfjordur but is likely to be in contention to face Rafael Benitez's side. Cuellar's availability against Liverpool would be timely as Villa have conceded five goals in their opening two League games against Manchester City and Stoke City.

The Villa manager, Martin O'Neill, said: "Carlos is doing well. It would have been great if he had been able to play a game before Sunday. I wish he had been eligible to play tonight.

"But he is making good progress. He has been training with us over the last two or three days and been doing really fine. He has done a lot of running as well. He is really keen to make his mark in the Premier League."

Another summer signing, the former Chelsea midfielder Steve Sidwell, is set to resume training in the next couple of days – also after suffering with a calf problem.

O'Neill said: "Steve is doing fine but wouldn't be as well advanced as Cuellar. He is doing pretty well although it feels as if I've been saying that for the last 10 days.

"He is coming along nicely and I think he will probably be able to join in with us in training towards the end of the week. But we will not rush him back. What we don't want is a group of players who are only half fit going into the busy months of September and October."

O'Neill suggested that he would use a patient approach in trying to persuade his unsettled midfielder Gareth Barry to sign a new deal – a topic that was on the agenda before the 27-year-old made it clear last May that he wanted to move to Liverpool.

O'Neill said: "If Gareth stays with us for the foreseeable future, I will be really delighted. It will be a really big bonus for us.

"I would have said only a few weeks ago that I was resigned to the fact Gareth would no longer be here. But as for the future now, let's go one step at a time."

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