Cahill could be recalled

Last updated : 27 December 2004 By Tony Scholes

One of six players booked by Walton was Villa’s Olof Mellberg, his fifth of the season, and this will rule him out of Villa’s fixture against Palace a week today.

The Premiership side are struggling for defenders with Mark Delaney and Martin Laursen also ruled out because of injury. This means the only central defender Villa will have with any Premiership experience is Liam Ridgewell.

The club have said that they have three options. One is to play Jlloyd Samuel there or turn to summer loan signing Vaclav Drobny whilst the third choice is to recall Gary Cahill who is coming towards the end of his second month on loan at the Turf.

Hopefully should that happen it won’t be as critical as it could have been in the last few weeks, by weekend we could have both John McGreal and Frank Sinclair available again.

Steve Cotterill though was hoping to extend the loan and had even asked about taking Cahill for the rest of the season.

If Villa decide against an early recall he will remain available to us up to and including the game at Stoke on 3rd January.