Fifth place in Premier League is progress for Aston Villa says Gareth Barry

Apr 24 2009 by Mathew Kendrick, Birmingham Mail

“We’re at a stage where the club just needs three points just to get back on track,” he said.

“In terms of the last three games we have been unlucky, we could have scored a lot more goals in the games.

“But ultimately it’s all about getting three points and we’ll be doing our best to get them.

“We’re not blaming the defence for the amount of goals we are conceding, we are looking at it from a team perspective. We have to start defending from the front and at the same time we don’t want to take away the attacking play we’ve had as well.

“It’s about getting the right mix against Bolton because we know it’s going to be a battle anyway, that’s their sort of style.

“We have to defend properly then hopefully we can nick a few goals.”

Barry insists Villa will cling on to their unlikely Champions League ambitions until it is mathematically impossible to finish in the top four.

“Everyone knows it’s going to be very difficult but until it’s over there’s no point not trying for it,” he added.

“We’ll give it our all until it’s impossible not to achieve it, so while there’s points out there we’ll be trying to gain them and see where it takes us.

“We knew we had lost points drawing against West Ham.

“It was probably a good point for Arsenal in the end, drawing at Liverpool, but there’s still a lot of points to play for.”