Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill admits they need to deepen the squad if they're to be consistent top four aspirants.

"We accept that we have to monitor this [fatigue] all the time," O'Neill said. "We have 13 Premiership games which are going to be exceptionally hard work for us. We also have, in between that, players going away on international matches and we've Uefa Cup games and travelling.

"You can see now why the teams who have been the top four sides in England for quite some considerable time have been used to this situation and that the squads they have accumulated stand them in good stead.

"That's something, if we are going to have this as part of our scenario in February and March in the next few years, which is what we are building towards, that we would have to really consider."