Hendrie wants four Villa signings

LEE HENDRIE has called for Aston Villa manager David O’Leary to be given the financial backing to significantly strengthen his squad in January if the club are to push for a European spot.

O’Leary is confident of winning the race to sign Southampton’s £6million-rated striker James Beattie after failing with a bid last summer.

But his arrival would only go so far to bolstering an injury-ravaged squad that even at full strength is amongst the smallest in the Barclays Premiership.

Hendrie believes O’Leary needs to be able to bring in four players if Villa want to be competing strongly at the top end of the table.

The strain on their depleted resources is beginning to show and Tuesday’s 1-0 home defeat by Manchester United means they collected just one point from six games in December.

“We know the squad is thin. I don’t know who would be on the bench this Saturday against Blackburn if someone had got injured on Tuesday against United.

“Hopefully we’ve got a few players coming back in the new year and that could give us a bit more strength because if someone got injured right now the physio might be one of the substitutes!

“We are down to the bare bones. It is no secret that we do need some players to sign in January and hopefully we’ll get a couple in.

“But if we are going to be competing for things like Europe, we do need four players and hopefully that happens because it would give us a lot more strength and competition for places.

Despite the recent poor run of results, Hendrie insists that the confidence in the Villa squad has not taken a battering.

“I don’t think the confidence has been affected by this run. We played some decent stuff against Chelsea and Man United over Christmas but we didn’t have that end product.

“The boys are still looking lively and we’re not down. It’s a long old season. We’ve got the second half of the season still and we’ve got to kick on now really.”

O’Leary, meanwhile, is reluctant to talk about his interest in players particularly as he must answer an FA charge over alleged remarks made relating to his interest in Beattie last summer.

But he did confirm: “I think there is £6m there from the summer to spend that I might now get in January to spend. I don’t like speaking about players at other clubs but I have been hearing rumours that we have bid for people.

“My chairman handles the business and has not come to see me about bidding for any player at the moment. I hope he will be bidding for players but I have not been informed of bidding for any player at the moment.

“We need four players in different positions to boost the squad. We have got 14 players and kids. I would like to bring it to 18 and kids.”