O'Neill forcing nobody out

Villa boss prepared to keep Young and Sidwell

Last updated: 31st July 2010   Subscribe to RSS Feed

O'Neill forcing nobody out

Young: Spurned Liverpool

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Martin O'Neill says he would have no problem with Luke Young and Steve Sidwell staying at Aston Villa.

Both men have been strongly linked with moves elsewhere of late, but remain at Villa Park for now.

Young was the subject of a bid from Liverpool this week, but turned down a switch to Anfield, while Sidwell has been interesting Fulham.

O'Neill claims he is in the dark as to whether either will form part of his plans for the 2010/11 campaign, but insists he would be happy to have them within his ranks.

On Young's situation, he told the club's official website: "I don't actually know exactly, but I think the news is that the move has not materialised. I'm not sure what the reasons are.

"I've been asked, 'how does that affect people?', but if it doesn't materialise, that's everybody in with a fighting chance again so from that viewpoint it's not the death knell on anybody.

Assumptions

"Of course, he will play in at least one of the games here (at a pre-season training camp in Portugal) and it's the same with Steve as well - and anybody else.

"I can't start thinking that some players are going to leave the football club and make assumptions on that, so everybody here will get a proper chance to go and be as fit as they can so that when the season opens up, they've had some sort of opportunity to do that."

On Sidwell, he added: "Again, I don't really know. I think the manager that was down to go there (Fulham), Martin Jol, obviously stayed. So I think that situation is certainly very much still in the balance.

"With a new manager coming in (Mark Hughes), it might be a different thought. I don't know if that will make things happen more quickly or not.

"Steve played against Walsall the other day. I think he's pleased to get some football in, which is very important and, at this minute, I wouldn't question anybody's attitude, particularly in terms of the training they've been doing.

"It's not as if anybody's decided I'm not going to be part of this, therefore I'm not going to train as hard."

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