Jose back for Villa game.

Jose Enrique will return to the NUFC starting line up for the trip to Aston Villa at weekend, it has been revealed.

Jose hasn't been right since the 2-1 home defeat to Everton and withdrew from that game with his hamstring injury. He made the starting line up for the next game at Stoke but only managed to last about 20 minutes before coming off injured. He was left out of the victory against Wolves, but fortunately he has resumed training and looks fine for the match against Aston Villa.

“Jose trained yesterday, and I don’t think he’ll be a problem for Villa.”

That is the view of Alan Pardew who I'm assuming will know more about Jose Enrique than we do. Hopefully he doesn't break down again and can stay fit from now until the end of the season. We are struggling for bodies so Jose's return will be a welcome boost and will give Alan Pardew some options with regard to team selection.

Speaking of returns, Hatem Ben Arfa has been pencilled in to return against Liverpool at the start of May. He will likely be on the bench and will probably only get a few minutes on the pitch, but it would represent a significant step in the recovery of the Frenchman, if he comes through it unscathed of course.

“I don’t think Hatem will be involved for a while, and Liverpool will possibly be his first inclusion in my thinking," said Pardew.

“He’s eager to join in, but we’ve got to be a little bit cautious with him. At some point, he’ll join in full training, and we’ll take it from there."

So two decent bits of injury news then. Obviously it's going to take a while for Benny to get back to full fitness, but as long as we see him back to his best in the long term then I'm not really bothered about how much of an impact he makes this season. An appaearance at St James' Park before the season is out would be nice though, both for the fans and the player.

Jose's return gives Alan Pardew the chance to shuffle the pack a little if he wants to, although I doubt we will see any radical changes after the Stoke debacle. The option that I'm thinking of would be to put Jonas on the right, move Barton on the middle and play young Shane Ferguson on the left wing. Nothing too radical, but a change all the same.

Thoughts?