Aston Villa Football Club News

• Nickname:The Villains
• Founded:1874
• Manager:Alex McLeish

• Ground:Villa Park
• Capacity:42,584

O'Neill has burn-out concerns

09 May 2009 - 10:56:44

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Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill fears that some of his young stars could suffer from burn-out next season.

Villa's campaign, which has petered out in the last few weeks, started ten months ago with an Intertoto Cup encounter with Odense.

O'Neill is aware that Gabriel Agbonlahor and James Milner will be playing in next month's Under-21 European Championship finals and fears that they will have little time to recover before pre-season training begins in July.

He said: "There doesn't seem to be any respite. At the end of the season, players go away for international matches.

"That's fine. They're major qualifying games in major competitions so you accept that.

"But then we have some members of our squad who'll be involved in the under-21 competition in Sweden so, when they arrive back for pre-season, they'll maybe have had four or five days off.

"That just isn't enough. For next season, we'll have to monitor them, give them time off when they'd have been training for us, so the benefit doesn't go to the football club, it goes to the international team.

"What they need at the end of the season is a break before they go back again otherwise people can suffer from burn-out, no question about that.

"I haven't asked the players how they feel - but we're going to be trying to monitor players."