David Wagner brushed off the latest bout of speculation over Nahki Wells and said the star striker will have a key part to play as Huddersfield Town aim to make it three wins from three Championship games at Aston Villa on Tuesday.

The 26-year-old made a goalscoring return from injury on Saturday to help Town win 2-1 at Newcastle United and go joint top of the fledgling table with QPR, Bristol City and Fulham.

Now Newcastle are said to be ready to ramp up their reported interest in the Bermuda international who has notched 40 Town goals since joining from Bradford City for £1.3m in January 2014 and is also said to be a target of Derby County and Norwich City.

David Wagner speaks about Nahki Wells:

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Head coach Wagner, however, said Wells is central to his forward planning and confirmed he is in line for a follow-up outing at Villa, who were 3-0 home winners over Rotherham United on Saturday.

“We were all happy to see Nahki back in action,” said the boss. “He was always in line for some minutes at Newcastle, but the decision to start with him developed the day before the game.

“He has missed some of pre-season because of his (knee) injury, so we all know he has still to get back some fitness, but I could see from his body language in training that he was keen to get back.

“It was great that he was able to work within our system and great that he got his goal, and this lifted him at a stage when he was starting to look a little bit tired, something which was totally normally given the lack of minutes in his legs beforehand.

“While Nahki needs to get fitter, he looks strong, confident and focused, so we must decide for how many minutes he can help us against Aston Villa, which will be another testing game for us.”