Europe has got Gareth Barry fired up

Sep 12 2008 By Nick Davis

GARETH Barry believes an early return to European action this season will hold Martin O’Neill’s young squad in good stead when they head to Bulgaria this week.

Barry, a key man in England’s thrilling World Cup victory in Croatia, heads back to Eastern Europe on Thursday night as Villa face Litex Lovech in the UEFA Cup first round.

And after seeing off Danish side Odense BK and FH Hafnarfjordur of Iceland, Barry feels Villa are quickly learning what it takes to succeed in Europe.

He said: “It’s important for this club to be back in the UEFA Cup. It’s nice for the fans to experience European football again and a club like ourselves should be playing in Europe year in, year out.

“The earlier rounds will set us up nicely and give the lads a bit of experience in travelling away from home.”

Thursday’s UEFA Cup tie will be Villa second game in a gruelling schedule of seven matches in just 21 days.

But Barry is undaunted by the schedule. He added: “We’ve got to get used to playing two games in a week and that’s why it was important for the manager to add to the squad this summer.

“This is a big tie for us because we’re aiming to get into the group stages. Obviously we didn’t know too much about them when the draw was made but we’ll go there and treat them with respect. We’ll do our homework and hopefully our form will be good going into the tie.

“We worked hard all last season to get this chance and we’ve had to work hard in the Intertoto and the qualifier. So now we have to make that hard work count.

“The last time we made it through to the UEFA Cup we went out in the first round and that was a waste of a lot of hard work.

“We have to make sure we don’t do the same again and that means we’ll have to work hard in the two games against the Bulgarians.”