Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill admits he's eager to add experience to his young squad.

He said: "We've lost experienced players like Olof Mellberg and we have to replace them.

"While I am very, very pleased with some of the young players coming through the ranks at Villa, for us to be competing again we need to be competing immediately, as soon as the Premiership season kicks off.

"From day one, that is our aim."

O'Neill added: "We're in the throes of trying to improve our team and we need to. But I'd prefer to stay rather general on these points and not comment on all the reports and speculation.

"There are things that we want to do and we've got a couple of weeks to try and improve the team. Actually we've got to the end of August but ideally it would be great if the season was kicking-off and we had a number of players in position.

"We are working as hard as we possibly can do behind the scenes to improve our squad, which we need to, and that hard work will continue."