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Darren Bent ruled out of England match after Aston Villa draw at Wigan

Darren Bent has been ruled out of England’s friendly with Holland on Wednesday after incurring an ankle injury in Aston Villa’s goalless draw at Wigan. Bent, 28, was carried off with suspected ligament damage a dozen minutes from time, following an innocuous-looking challenge by Antolín Alcaraz.

Although official word will not come until a scan on the damage – provisionally scheduled for Monday morning – has been taken, Alex McLeish effectively withdrew his club’s top scorer. The Villa manager fears the prognosis could rule out Bent adding to his nine Premier League goals any time soon.

“He was in agony in the dressing room – grimacing and a little bit nauseous – and going by his reaction it seems serious,” McLeish said. “The pitch was very heavy and it sapped the energy out of a lot of players. Darren was just unlucky to go into one of the pieces of turf that was dug up. Normally it’s your ligaments that are affected in a situation like that. You never know, it could settle down but whatever happens I am certain he will be out of the England squad. There will be some common sense here, I would think, and if Benty does have to report he will be limping into the headquarters.”

Villa would be loth to lose their £18m record signing at any stage but his absence would be more keenly felt for the return of Robbie Keane to Los Angeles Galaxy. This was the Irishman’s final match of a loan spell and proved a frustrating farewell; Keane’s interaction with Bent just shy of the quarter-hour – when the latter was denied by the onrushing Wigan goalkeeper Ali al-Habsi – was the closest either side came to scoring.

With the crossover of football and rugby league seasons upon us – an habitual problem at the DW Stadium – the surface stymied creativity and left set pieces the prime source of chances. But Wigan could not take advantage of Villa’s achilles heel: their defending at corners. Villa had conceded a Premier League-high 11 from such situations coming into this contest but both Alcaraz and Jordi Gómez failed to hit the target with free headers.

Villa’s goalkeeper, Shay Given, did not have a save to make during the opening 45 minutes, and when he was exposed, after rushing from his area to clear, Marc Albrighton’s precision challenge denied Gómez in the process of shooting. There were only four minutes remaining when James McArthur stung the keeper’s palms, and his second save, diverting Franco Di Santo’s drive, came in injury time.

By that stage, Villa’s travelling hordes had unleashed plenty of anti-McLeish vitriol. Responding to the chants of “We Want Our Villa Back,” McLeish said: “We will prosper. I am not getting into a spat with my own supporters. It is a hair’s breadth between being a hero and a zero.”

The relegation-threatened Roberto Martínez, who turned down Villa last summer, gets an easier ride. But it will become bumpier for the Wigan manager unless his side avert an appalling run of 11 home matches without a win – their first and last one this season coming against Queens Park Rangers in August.

“The home form is a worry because of the position we are in in the table but at the same time we are capable of going anywhere in the Premier League and winning,” Martínez said. “It would be a real advantage if we could rectify things but if we play like that we will win games”.