The on-loan midfielder suffered a strain prior to Villa's Everton fixture but has made encouraging progress in recent days fuelling quiet optimism from the manager. Comparatively, Bent who incurred a late groin injury against Newcastle last Saturday is unlikely to feature, joining the injury list along with fellow forward, Emile Heskey. Speaking to the official Villa website, McLeish said: "We have been working with Jermaine on the training ground over the last few days and, touch wood, he's available for the weekend. "But we're not committing ourselves 100 per cent to that. "We could be doing with the competition. "Emile isn't quite ready and Darren is not as bad as first feared. "He's touch and go for the weekend. He's, at this stage, 50-50." Having won just one of their opening five league games the Lions look to pick up a win against new boys QPR who currently equal Villa's points tally.
