LONDON, England (CMC) —Luckless Reggae Boy winger Leon Bailey has suffered a fresh injury blow that will keep him out of action until after Christmas, his English Premier League club Aston Villa has confirmed.

Bailey, 24, pulled up holding his thigh after sprinting in the first half-an-hour of last Wednesday’s 2-1 defeat against Manchester City. He was replaced in that game by Ashley Young and was seen heading down the tunnel visibly upset.

Ahead of Villa’s match against Leicester on Sunday, which Villa won 2-1, manager Steven Gerrard said: “Unfortunately, he’s [Bailey] had a scan that has confirmed there is a muscle injury.

“It’s going to be quite a long one, so he’ll be missing for a number of weeks and you won’t see him before Christmas.”

Bailey, who completed a £30-million (US$39.7-million) move from German club Bayer Leverkusen in the summer, limped off in September after a brilliant 21-minute cameo in which he scored with a thunderous shot that wrapped up Villa’s 3-0 win over Everton at Villa Park.

He returned from that quad injury in October and was handed his first start of the season in a 4-1 defeat against West Ham United in which he faced his Jamaica colleague Mikhail Antonio, but neither Reggae Boy scored.

Bailey’s combination of pace, trickery and eye for goal has given Gerrard’s side a potent attacking force from out wide and removes much of the goal-scoring burden from the likes of Ollie Watkins and Danny Ings.

The Jamaican’s injury-marred start to life at Villa Park has seen him play just 423 minutes of football in the Premier League, but the FootballFanCast website said the player had already made a huge impact in his short time at the club.

“As one of the club’s marquee summer signings, it’s been desperately disappointing to see Bailey spend so much time off the field rather than on it, and this latest niggling problem is sure to have Gerrard absolutely gutted at not being able to count on him for the foreseeable future,” the website added.