Micah Richards is no nearer a return to the Aston Villa first-team, more than two years after his last appearance.

Richards, the former England international, has not played since Oct 2016 and been placed on a special training regime in a bid to build up his fitness after a persistent knee injury.

The defender, 30, was frozen out by former Villa manager Steve Bruce and replacement Dean Smith has offered no guarantees Richards will be making an imminent return.

Smith said: “Micah has not played for a long time so he’s not near fitness to be in contention at all at the moment. We’ll see how his fitness builds over the next month or two.

“He’s been on a special programme, the training minutes he hasn’t had so far. We’ll see how his body adapts to those training minutes as we go.”