O'Leary confident of Delaney return

David O'Leary is confident that Mark Delaney will be fit enough to provide an end of season boost to Aston Villa's push for a European spot.

The Villa manager initially feared that Delaney would be sidelined for the remainder of the campaign with the foot injury suffered against Fulham at Loftus Road last month.

But the Welsh international is making a rapid recovery and O'Leary has him pencilled in for a return to reserve team action in early to mid April.

O'Leary said: "We thought after what happened against Fulham that we would lose Mark for the rest of the season.

"I think that he has a really good chance of getting in a reserve game in the next three or four weeks.

"I think we've gone from totally ruling Mark out to him having a great chance of coming back and playing at the back end of this season."

Striker Marcus Allback is also making encouraging progress after his groin operation and O'Leary said: "He is back in training and hopefully he will get a reserve match in during the next couple of weeks."