Aston Villa, O’Neill hopes Laursen will be back soon

Aston Villa have been dealt a blow with the news Martin Laursen has suffered a setback in his bid to return to action after a knee problem.

O’Neill said: “Martin has had a bit of a setback. He was doing fine and then his knee got a bit sore and puffed up a little bit after training. “Hopefully it will only be a three or four-day setback. But any setback at this stage would be a genuine one simply because of Martin’s importance to the team.

“Maybe his enthusiasm was too strong – he was possibly doing too much, too soon. But we will see. He may even have been ahead of schedule at one stage – so we just hope it’s a minor setback at the moment.”