“We made it clear throughout the season that we would return to this issue during the summer and that is the plan," a spokesman told the clubs official website on Tuesday.
“The last couple of weeks have been taken up with the search for a new manager and obviously other issues had to take something of a backseat.
“The fact is that Darius has been away with England anyway, but he knows the contract negotiations are on our agenda. As ever, we won’t be putting a timetable on this.
"Darius is a local lad, a Villa fan and he has consistently stressed his desire to stay at Villa Park. As a club we have made it clear we want to negotiate a new contract and hopefully we can now get down to that.”