Aston Villa star Leon Bailey responds to latest injury setback

Leon Bailey's maiden season at Aston Villa has been frustrated by injury setbacks.

Bailey has been unable to put a run of more than seven consecutive appearances together in the Premier League since his £30 million arrival from Bayer Leverkusen in the summer. The Jamaica international came off five minutes before half-time of the 2-0 defeat of Norwich City at Villa Park on Saturday with an ankle injury.

Bailey was making his seventh straight appearance for Villa and was doing well until he had to be replaced by Danny Ings shortly before the interval. Bailey has struggled to make his mark at Villa with the 24 year-old arriving at Villa without a full pre-season and once he scored his first goal for the club against Everton in September, he picked up a quad injury.

That sidelined him for three games and then in December he was ruled out until the middle of February with a hamstring problem. Bailey has, on occasion, shown glimpses of his obvious talent and a proper pre-season will allow him to adapt to the rigours of the Premier League.

Villa boss Steven Gerrard rates him highly and was disappointed to see him come off injured. "It's an ankle issue," Gerrard said after the Norwich game.

"In terms of the extent and the damage I’m sure he’ll be MRI scanned in the next 24 to 48 hours. "I'm really disappointed and frustrated for him because he's worked really hard to get back, he's been training ever so well.

"We wanted to give him another opportunity off the back of Leicester City to really try and keep him in the rhythm. "You see how he started the game he nearly scores with a fantastic effort and a top save from Tim Krul and not too far after that he's got to come off the pitch.

"He's frustrated, we're frustrated and