Form not an issue for Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill

Apr 18 2008 By Bill Howell

MARTIN O'Neill will not be drawn into a debate as to whether Blues will stay up.

But he concedes old foe Alex McLeish will not give two hoots Villa are heading into the derby in scintillating form.

"There is no point me commenting because it could be termed inflammatory,'' the Villa boss said when asked of Blues' chances of beating the drop.

"But I think they have got a couple of points' advantage and they have got tough games too. They would consider Sunday a tough game.

"Obviously your mind would wander to the opposition's fixtures. You look at Bolton and can't stop yourself from thinking: 'If we can get a point here, or maybe force a victory there'.

"I think the way Alex will look at it is that it is very much a big derby game and it genuinely doesn't matter that we come into it in decent form because, I believe, it is a game that could go either way."

McLeish and O'Neill squared up to each other initially as Hibernian and Celtic bosses for a season-and-a-half between O'Neill's move to Celtic in the summer of 2000 until McLeish moved to Rangers in December 2001.

O'Neill did not lose any of seven clashes.

The Old Firm were then involved in some monumental exchanges over the next three-and-a-half seasons. McLeish won the first encounter - a League Cup tie, 2-1, in February 2002 - and won another that first season in four unbeaten games.

The following season was evenly split 2-2 with one draw. O'Neill achieved a clean sweep of five straight wins in 2003/04, and his final season saw them share three wins apiece in six meetings - Stiliyan Petrov scoring the opening goal of a 2-1 win at Ibrox in the final meeting in April 2005.

O'Neill recalls: "I came up against Alex plenty of times.

"You play each other four times anyway in the league, and then there's the cup games.

"But it is a different ball game now in the Premier League with two sides in the city, which is coincidence again."