Aston Villa have suspended striker Gabby Agbonlahor after pictures in The Sun emerged at the weekend showing the forward appearing to be inhaling laughing gas.

Villa, who were relegated at the weekend, have said that they will conduct an investigation following the allegations.

This will be the second time that Villa have conducted an investigation on the Midlands native, after he was caught with a shisha pipe while on holiday in Dubai.

A statement read: “Aston Villa Football Club has today suspended Gabby Agbonlahor pending an internal investigation.

“This is following allegations concerning his conduct at the weekend.

“There will be no further comment from the Club in relation to this matter until the investigation has been completed.”

The striker was already on the sidelines after he was told he was not fit enough and was placed on a fitness programme.

Manager Eric Black confirmed that the player needed to work on his fitness and said:

“It won’t be totally up to me. It will be up to me in terms of selection, but I now need to see an improvement on his fitness.

“He was in when the players were off on Wednesday, he’s doing another individual session today, and he’s with the Under-21s on Saturday.

“He’s paid by Aston Villa to play football, so if I see an improvement and he gets to a certain level there’s no reason why I wouldn’t use him.

“I have to try to get the best out of the squad I’ve got and, together, we agreed that he wasn’t in a condition to be involved in the squad. I got the fitness coach involved and we put a two-week fitness coach in place and we will see what happens.”