Ross Barkley has missed out on 4 games after suffering a hamstring injury last month.
Ross Barkley must fight to win his place back for in-form Aston Villa, boss Dean Smith has cautioned.
The on-loan Chelsea midfielder has been out for a month with a hamstring injury.
He is expected to be readily available for the Boxing Day see of Crystal Palace and is because of go back to training on Wednesday.
Villa are ninth in the Premier League and 3 points behind the leading 5, with 2 games in hand, with Smith recommending England man Barkley is not ensured an instantaneous return.
He stated: “That’s for Ross to get back into the team and he’ll understand that.
” I desire the problem of having leading players like Barkley and (Ezri) Konsa coming back to full physical fitness and pressing me in regards to getting back into the starting line-up.
” It was an actually good efficiency on Sunday against West Brom and followed on from an actually good efficiency against Burnley.
” The only thing missing out on from the 27 shots against Burnley was transforming them.
“It looked similar against West Brom until the 80th minute, but we showed some really good patience within the game, and – at the moment – we’re looking a really good team.”
Without Barkley, Villa have actually stayed connected with the European areas and brushed the Baggies aside 3-0 on Sunday.
The England international joined on a season-long loan in the summer with Ollie Watkins, Bertrand Traore, Matty Money and Emi Martinez as Villa reinforced after preventing the drop on the final day last season with Smith happy with their depth.
“The last two matches have proved it is there,” he stated.
” We had 4 new beginners against Burnley in (Kortney) Hause, (Anwar) El Ghazi, Elmo (Ahmed Elmohamady) and (Magnificent) Nakamba, and they all played actually well because game.
” Kortney and El Ghazi have actually continued that in addition to Traore, who’s most likely only played 300 minutes approximately this season.
“He played really well against West Brom too, so we’ve proved we have that depth and the ones who haven’t been regular starters this season have shown they’re ready to take their chances when the opportunity comes around.”
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