Villa – A Barry Bonus!

Gareth Barry has stoked the fire between Villa and Birmingham City as he says he wants the 3 points for Villa and if it meant Blues were relegated it would just be a bonus for us!

Barry told the official site: ‘All that matters is the three points.’

With Portsmouth doing a Harry Houdini and looking like escaping the drop, Villa are still not secure with Premiership safety, a win today would do the job.
He continued: ‘There’s fear there, of course, until you’re mathematically safe…..Keeping the cushion we have over Birmingham the same should be enough to see us safe but it will bring satisfaction to our supporters if we help to send Birmingham down. This is part and parcel of living in Birmingham, this rivalry, and it’s got worse since they came into the Premiership.’

‘When we beat them at St Andrews it was one of the most satisfying results since I’ve been here, but this is the biggest one since they came up in terms of what’s at stake.’

Gareth Barry has the honour of captaining Villa today as Olof Mellberg misses another game due to his hamstring injury.

He added: ‘These games are rarely classics. There’s too much at stake, so you don’t get too much fancy stuff. You need to work hard for each other and scrap for absolutely everything. It’s often a mistake that settles this sort of game and we have to make sure we’re not the ones who make that mistake.’