Aston Villa chairman Randy Lerner expects manager Martin O'Neill to be active in the winter market.

He told Villa's website: "I assume we'll be looking for players in January. We've not spoken about specific players and we haven't set a budget.

"But Martin and I didn't discuss a budget going into the summer or the previous window (last January). That doesn't seem to be the nature of our dialogue.

"It's much more about the kind of players he's looking for, where they are and who they are. It the process of figuring out how to get to them and bring them in.

"I don't think that Martin is a kind of 'open chequebook' type manager. Obviously, like any manager, Martin needs the ability to be aggressive in the transfer market."

He continued: "I think that Martin's background and his sense of how you're supposed to manage - how winning somehow becomes the by-product of a variety of disciplines - isn't simply a money game.

"It's about bringing young players along, using older players and experienced players where appropriate and creating something among the players which is kind of special."