Cuellar: Keen to make an impact

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Carlos Cuellar is in line to make his belated Aston Villa debut against Liverpool on Sunday.

The Spanish defender was sidelined by a calf injury following his £7.8million arrival from Rangers, while he is ineligible to compete in Thursday's Uefa Cup qualifying clash with Hafnarfjordur.

However, he is contention to feature against the Reds at Villa Park, with Martin O'Neill hoping the commanding centre-half will add some much-needed steel to a defence which has shipped five goals in their opening two Premier League games.

O'Neill said: "Carlos is doing well. It would have been great if he had been able to play a game before Sunday. I wish he had been eligible to play tonight (Thursday).

"But he is making good progress. He has been training with us over the last two or three days and been doing really fine. He has done a lot of running as well.

"He is really keen to make his mark in the Premier League."

No rush

Another of O'Neill's summer signings, Steve Sidwell, is also poised for a return to training and will be back in contention shortly.

"Steve is doing fine but wouldn't be as well advanced as Cuellar," added O'Neill.

"He is doing pretty well although it feels as if I've been saying that for the last ten days.

"He is coming along nicely and I think he will probably be able to join in with us in training towards the end of the week.

"But we will not rush him back. What we don't want is a group of players who are only half fit going into the busy months of September and October."