Aston Villa’s stretched squad has been weakened further by the departure of Luke Young from the club’s Peace Cup training camp in Spain.
Young was hoping to play some part in the pre-season tournament and was initially pencilled in for tonight’s game against Atlante, of Mexico.
However, the former Middlesbrough right-back has suffered a setback with his thigh problem and has flown home to receive treatment in England.
Martin O’Neill believes it makes more sense for Young to continue his rehabilitation at Bodymoor Heath than to remain in Spain.
“It’s been a really frustrating pre-season for Luke,” said O’Neill.
“He looked like he was going to be fit on a number of occasions but he has had setbacks.
“He trained exceptionally hard two days ago and then yesterday he didn’t last too long.
“He was looking forward to the Atlante game – he would have been playing in the match – but now he has had to pull out.
“We have sent him home now to do some rehabilitation work. We think that is the best thing to do.
“He can be very satisfied with the way he played last season. We signed him as a right-back but he played a lot of games at left-back. I thought he did very well indeed.
“He had a foot injury at the end of that season which curtailed his appearances in the last couple of weeks – and for that reason alone he was definitely looking forward to a break ahead of this pre-season.
“So it’s been desperately frustrating for him.”
Wilfred Bouma is with the squad at their Marbella training base but will not figure in tonight’s game or potential semi-final or final fixtures.
“Freddy is doing pretty well,” added O’Neill.
“It was a setback some months ago to find out he had floating particles in his ankle – nothing to do with the operation he had – but that has been cleared out now.
“It’s just taking a little bit of time and that is frustrating for Freddie and for us too. He will be a few more weeks yet.”
Villa require a victory by two clear goals this evening to qualify for the knockout stages of the Peace Cup.
