Taylor left the transfer-listed Boateng, who is attracting the interest of Middlesbrough, out of his squad for Saturday’s Intertoto Cup clash with FC Zurich.

There was not even a place available on the substitutes bench for the Dutch international as Villa won 3-0 to book a semi-final spot by a 3-2 aggregate margin.

Taylor said: “With these transfer windows coming up, George could have left us by August 31 so I’ve got to look at playing and putting out teams without him in them.

“He knows I don’t want him to go but he feels it’s right for his career to take a fresh challenge.

“As things stand, George is still an Aston Villa player and we’ve just got to get on with it because we’ve had no calls. Nothing is happening. That’s the reality of the matter.”

To add to Boateng’s misery, he has been charged with misconduct by the Football Association after his boot-throwing antics in the league match with Leicester City at Filbert Street at the end of last season.

Boateng was involved in a bust-up with Leicester striker Paul Dickov and, after losing his boot in a challenge, threw it in the direction of a stand packed with supporters.

It has emerged that match referee Graham Poll reported the incident and now the FA have charged the former Coventry City player.

Meanwhile Taylor revealed that he had dug his heels in and refused to reduce the summer break he gave to his players involved in the World Cup so that they could play from the start of the Intertoto Cup.

Taylor admitted there “was a feeling” that he should have given the likes of Darius Vassell, Ozalan Alpay, Marcus Allback, Olof Mellberg and Steve Staunton only a fortnight’s rest rather than a month after Japan and Korea.

He said: “To get results in matches like this means you’ve got to be very careful because you could then be saying to World Cup players ‘you can’t have a month off, you’ve got to be back in two weeks because we need you for the Intertoto.’

“There is a feeling that I should have been doing that but I was adamant that I am not going to press World Cup players to come back just to play an Intertoto game to satisfy other people.”

Mellberg, Staunton and Allback did return for the second leg against Zurich as Villa clinched a semi-final meeting with Lille.

Allback marked his debut after his £2m (€3.2m) move from Heerenveen by getting on the scoresheet after Michael Boulding had broken the deadlock.

And it was the veteran Staunton, who skippered the Republic of Ireland in place of Roy Keane in the World Cup finals, who scored the decisive third goal of a match almost totally dominated by Villa.

Taylor is considering bringing England striker Darius Vassell back into the action as a substitute for the first leg against Lille in France on Wednesday.

But he insisted that Alpay will not be involved as he will only return to training on Monday after his excellent performance for Turkey in helping them reach the semi-finals.