Martin O'Neill, the Aston Villa manager, insists he does not regret selling Gary Cahill even though the centre half has since developed from reserve-team player to England squad member.

O'Neill allowed Cahill to join Bolton Wanderers in January 2008 for a fee of £5 million at a time when the player was being kept out of the Villa side by Martin Laursen, Curtis Davies and Olof Mellberg.

With O'Neill preparing for the visit of Bolton in the Barclays Premier League tomorrow, he made a point of standing by the sale. "Have I any regrets that Cahill left? No," he said. "He wasn't exactly kicked out of the door, but Gary got to the stage where he wanted to play first-team football.

"He felt he wasn't going to get that in the coming weeks or months on a regular basis at Villa and, if we couldn't keep him, then we don't really want to stop people from making progress.

"Bolton, Birmingham City and Sheffield United were interested. Bolton paid us £5m plus the sell-on fee. He was happy to go, we are happy and we still remain happy with the situation."

O'Neill is confident Villa will be able to cope with their fifth game in 14 days, the most recent being a defeat by West Ham United. "It shouldn't be a concern," he said. "You see the likes of Chelsea playing week in and week out, the Champions League one week, the Carling Cup the next, and they have got a great attitude.

"We don't have European football to worry about. That doesn't mean I wasn't disappointed with having to play four away games on the trot, particularly as the West Ham game could have been played on another couple of dates."

O'Neill is optimistic that Stewart Downing, the £12m summer signing, will be available by the end of December. The England winger has been sidelined since breaking his foot in April but he has been given the green light to join in with full training from next week.

"Downing has done a bit of training and had some very good news from the specialist," O'Neill said. "He has got the go-ahead to train and try and mix in with the lads.

"It will be like a pre-season for him and the news is very encouraging. He has got a great attitude and, hopefully, we will see the best out of him before Christmas and, by the end of the month, he might be in real decent shape. He is doing ball work now and he can join in with us next week when we can really push him on a bit."

O'Neill will be without Stiliyan Petrov and Habib Beye because of suspension for the Bolton game, while James Milner and Emile Heskey are doubtful with injuries.