Villa hold talks with Guzan

Aston Villa are holding talks with Brad Guzan as he prepares to make his first league appearance of the season.

Villa keeper set to step in at Bolton

Aston Villa are holding contract talks with Brad Guzan as the goalkeeper prepares to make his first Premier League appearance of the season. The 27-year-old United States international is set to step into the breach on Saturday at Bolton following a hamstring injury to Shay Given, who is expected to be sidelined for one month. Guzan has had few first-team opportunities since joining Villa three years ago and he will be eagerly anticipating this chance to impress manager Alex McLeish. His contract expires next summer and McLeish is confident he can come in and make an immediate impact. He said: "This is a challenge for Brad now, coming in, and a good opportunity for him to show how good a goalkeeper he is. "Hopefully we can defend well enough so that they (Bolton) don't get to him too much. "But we know that in a game, he'll have to come to the fore and we believe in him and we've got good faith in him. "He's extremely unlucky to have been understudying some great goalkeepers, but now his chance has come." McLeish added: "Brad did hint that possibly he was looking to go elsewhere and play first team football but, even before Shay got injured, we told him we needed him and we valued him. "We'd been talking about a new contract and I guess that will probably be talked about in the coming few weeks."