Soccer:Aston Villa boss Alex McLeish is hoping Republic of Ireland international Ciaran Clark, Marc Albrighton, Chris Herd, and Stephen Warnock will all be available for Saturday's clash with Sunderland at Villa Park. There was further good news from an Irish perspective in that the Villa boss suggested that Richard Dunne might make an appearance before the end of the season.

Dunne broke his collarbone broke his collarbone in February but McLeish enthused: “It might be holding him back that’s the problem, but it’s a happy problem. I don’t think he’s too far away from joining the group.

Albrighton, Herd and Warnock all missed last weekend’s 4-0 defeat by Manchester United, while Clark suffered a head injury in that game but has recovered.

“Marc (Albrighton) has not yet trained with the group but it’s likely that he’ll train tomorrow and he’ll be available. Ciaran (Clark) has got a head knock, but he’s fine. He’s not in the same situation as Herdy was. Herdy is looking quite good as well. He’s stopped seeing stars and he’s fine. Fingers crossed he’s available for the weekend.

“Stevie is training with the physios at the moment. He’s still got a wee bit of puffiness in his ankle but he said he was feeling quite good. If they can work on getting the fluid out of his ankle then I would like to think he’s got a chance of making the squad.” Charles N’Zogbia and Carlos Cuellar are also pushing for starting places.