Shaun Maloney is prepared to stay with Aston Villa, despite the lack of continuity he's had since arriving from Celtic.

"My manager was pretty keen for me to stay," revealed Maloney yesterday. "I knew I wanted to play more but my manager wanted me to stay so, if he's saying that, there's nothing else I can ask.

"Do I enjoy it? It's all right, yeah. I would obviously like to play a lot more. But yeah, I enjoy it, more now than I did in the first six months. It took probably until the start of this season to settle. The only problem is that I want to play more. Hopefully that will come, because it has been quite a frustrating season.

"I'm not too down about it because, whenever I have played, I've done reasonably well. And the team is doing well and doesn't revolve around me. I'm just trying to get in as often as I can.

"Obviously, I want to play more and hopefully I can. Every time I do play, I give my all. It's just about trying to get in the team and change the manager's mind."