O’Leary tells Hendrie to button lip

LEE HENDRIE will return to action for Aston Villa on St Stephen’s Day at Chelsea with a “stop mouthing off” message from David O’Leary ringing in his ears.

O'Leary believes Hendrie was harshly treated in receiving a three-match ban for his red card against Manchester City last month.

The midfielder directed a head-butt towards Danny Mills but did not make contact and an appeal against the red card was rejected by the FA.

But, while vigorously defending Hendrie over that incident, O'Leary knows the player has sounded off too often and become needlessly embroiled in incidents which have landed him in trouble.

He said: "you had to back the player up fully over what happened against Manchester City and what happened to Lee was a disgrace but he does get booked for silly things.

"With the size of the squad that we have, you cannot afford to have players being ruled out through unnecessary suspensions. All his bookings generally come from mouthing off and that's where he has to change things big style.

"Is he letting himself down? Yes, because if there's anything he could improve upon in my time here, it's that. He will always be around incidents and I've told him not to get involved in things ever since I've been at the club.

"I told him last season because he's always lipping away to people, walking into things that have nothing to do with him. But it was undeserved in terms of what happened against Manchester City."

O'Leary knows that his squad one of the smallest in the Premiership will be tested to the limit with four games in the space of nine days against Chelsea, Manchester United, Blackburn and Crystal Palace.

He admitted: "with the lack of numbers, it will make us very vulnerable if we do pick up any injuries.

"When we played Liverpool recently they had a lot of injuries but the team they were able to put out on the pitch was frightening. If I had those sort of numbers out, I'd have to play the youth team."