Petrov suffered the setback during the Peace Cup clash with Atlante in mid-week and immediately flew home to undergo treatment.

O'Neill admits he would have been resigned to being without the Bulgaria international for four months had he needed an operation.

But he is hoping Petrov can play on with the problem on a game-to-game basis.

O'Neill said: "The news initially is pleasing although it's still an injury which can cause you an awful lot of problems.

"At this moment, we are hopeful it might settle down and he can play with it. We would then monitor it on a game-to-game basis.

"We were concerned that he might have needed an operation, which could have kept him out for four months. That would have been a major blow.

"At this moment, we are reasonably happy with it but we will see how it goes. He isn't out of the woods yet."

O'Neill is hopeful that central defender Curtis Davies will have recovered from his shoulder complaint - sustained in the semi-final win over Porto - in time to face Juventus in Sunday's final but he will take no risks.

He said: "Curtis has had a shoulder problem in the past. It started way back when he was at West Bromwich Albion. Interestingly he knew nothing about it at the time.

"If you remember he had a problem with it last season and it seemed to go away.

"It caused him a problem against Porto, he had to come off but he's feeling a lot better now. He is willing to give it a go.

"If that's the case, and if it's fine with the medical staff, we will do so. If it's too much of a discomfort, then we will leave it."

O'Neill is expected to step up his bid to strengthen his squad next week with as many as five players on his radar.

Sporting Lisbon play-maker Miguel Veloso is believed to be amongst his top targets but the Portuguese club want Villa to firm up their interest in the £12million rated player.

Real Madrid midfielder Wesley Scheider is also being linked with Villa even though reports in Spain claim a fee of 16million euros has been agreed with Liverpool.

Portsmouth defender Sylvain Distin is believed to be keen to move to Villa although the £4.5million asking price is understood to be a stumbling block.

Villa are believed to be close to agreeing a deal for Blackburn left-back Stephen Warnock and O'Neill is understood to be weighing up whether to offer a deal to veteran defender Sol Campbell whose contract has ended at Portsmouth.