Aston Villa have no fear - Martin O'Neill

Mar 6 2008 By Bill Howell

MARTIN O'Neill believes his Aston Villa side are now playing without fear as they continue their march towards Europe.

And he has shrugged off talk about his motivational skills by insisting his high-flying stars are playing with panache because of their performances.

"Like anything else it is not just a case of somebody telling them to believe in themselves," O'Neill said. "You have to go out and you have to perform.

"The performances themselves will be enough for those players to believe that they can do it."

Villa are the third highest scorers in the Premier League behind Manchester United and Arsenal.

"Winning consistently and not getting beaten. We have lost one league game in 12 and we have shown that we can attack," says O'Neill.

"They are thriving on it players like Ashley Young and Gabby Agbonlahor and I thought Marlon Harewood was brilliant when he came on for us at Arsenal.

"We are causing teams problems because we can get at them.

"At the minute we are playing with no real fear, which is great considering the stakes are pretty high. That to me is the lovely thing about it.

"We are where we are in the table but we are improving and we are capable of causing teams problems - and we caused Arsenal plenty of problems."

Despite their good form Villa could be almost out of the race for the top five by the time they face Middlesbrough next Wednesday.

They could face an eight-point gap between themselves, in sixth, and Liverpool - who beat West Ham last night to go five points clear - and Everton.

The Merseyside duo face Newcastle and Sunderland respectively on Saturday.