Martin O'Neill admits Aston Villa have little margin for error

Martin O'Neill said last night that Aston Villa are still fighting for a place in the top four, though he admitted their stuttering form in recent weeks has left little margin for error between now and the end of the season. Villa head to Stamford Bridge today on the back of two disappointing draws at home in the space of five days and with a number of senior players struggling to cope with the demands of a gruelling schedule which has highlighted the lack of strength in depth within certain areas in O'Neill's squad. James Milner, Emile Heskey and Richard Dunne are all major doubts for the Chelsea fixture after either picking up or exacerbating achilles tendon injuries against Sunderland in midweek. That match was the seventh time Villa have failed to win in 10 unbeaten league fixtures this year and O'Neill conceded that the disappointing run of results means draws are no longer enough away from home if they are to remain in the hunt for Champions League football. "It's still worth fighting for," he said. "But away from home we are going to have to win some matches where [before], if you had just been unbeaten in them, it would have been OK. We will just go for everything. It was disappointing to drop the points at home. But we have to fight back. We are just going to go for it." O'Neill accepted Stewart Downing "has a point", after the England international claimed the Villa players were "out on our feet" at the end of the Sunderland match, and he signalled his intention to "freshen it up" over the coming weeks. He also acknowledged, though, that he is unable to bring in the type of replacements that Harry Redknapp has at his disposal at Tottenham Hotspur, where Eidur Gudjohnsen, Roman Pavlyuchenko, David Bentley and Tom Huddlestone have come off the substitutes' bench in the last two matches. With Spurs taking on Portsmouth today, there is every chance Villa will lose further ground on fourth place this weekend but O'Neill believes the race is far from over. "I'm not too despondent at this moment," he added. "I think there will be a few twists and turns and that's regardless of what happens on the weekend. Spurs have got some real difficult games coming up. What you need is a wee bit of luck here and there."