Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill insists Stiliyan Petrov remains part of his plans.

O'Neill said: "I think an awful lot has been made of this. Why? I don't know.

"I've rested him for a couple of games. Hopefully he'll come back and when he does I'm hoping he's raring to go. Who knows?

"Stiliyan Petrov travelled down with us for the game at Arsenal but I decided to go with the same 16.

"I can't stress this enough: everybody is in contention, everybody has a part to play. We don't have the squad for it not to be so. Could Petrov return? It could be tomorrow night."