Barry In Praise Of Villa Team-mates

Gareth Barry, easily our player of the season so far, notched up his fifth goal against Blackburn Rovers after converting yet another penalty for the Villa and the midfielder, who must surely now have earnt a re-call to the England set up, has promised to keep banging them in!

Barry told the official site: ‘I thought about the one I missed against Leicester and obviously you want to learn from your mistakes. I thought I’d go back to square-one and once I saw him move, it was straight down the middle. As he went down he tried to get back, but he couldn’t. I’m delighted to have five goals on the board by early November. A lot can happen yet this season, but hopefully I can keep the goals coming.

He also praised fellow midfielder Gavin McCann, on form defender Martin Laursen and new boy Chris Sutton:

‘Gavin has been a big miss. We haven’t picked up the same amount of points with him out of the team. He did brilliantly, although he was tired at the end. Martin did really well. He headed everything. We kept a clean-sheet and lot was down to him. Chris Sutton was magnificent. He moans about being old and stiff, but he puts himself about for the team and you can see why the manager has brought him here.’

I must admit I think the performance by Chris Sutton might have shut up a few of his doubters, although he was still obviously short of match fitness, he put in a really battling performance and it might prove difficult for the below par Milan Baros to displace him.