Trio out for Villa

Aston Villa will be without striker Kevin Phillips, right-back Aaron Hughes and midfielder Lee Hendrie for Sunday’s Villa Park clash with Middlesbrough.

Phillips will miss his fourth successive match with a calf strain, while Hughes is sidelined after undergoing hernia surgery that will also rule him out of Northern Ireland’s World Cup qualifiers next month.

Hendrie misses out as he is having knee surgery today to repair cartilage damage, but Villa are set to be boosted by the return of striker Milan Baros after the striker missed last weekend’s 2-1 defeat at Chelsea with the Achilles problem.

Team (from): Sorensen, Taylor, Samuel, Mellberg, Ridgewell, Cahill, Bouma, Milner, Berger, Bakke, Davis, De La Cruz, Djemba-Djemba, Barry, Baros, Angel, Moore.