Aston Villa boss in vow to drive on to end of season

Apr 29 2009 by Bill Howell, Birmingham Mail

O’Neill laughs at the reporting of some of his team selections which, he believes, would be seen differently by the top four.

“The difficulty is that with other teams it would be called ‘rotation’,” he said.

“Because it is us, with a lesser team, it is being called ‘left out of the team’.

“Ryan Giggs said that the manager has used him ‘sparingly’ this year. Years ago it would have been called ‘dropped’.”

Villa are five points shy of their 60 point total of last year as they seek a top-five spot for the first time since Brian Little’s side in the mid-1990s.

“We are trying to improve our position from last season which would be fantastic,” said O’Neill, whose side are without a win in 11 games in all competitions.

“We would like to get more points than last season if at all possible.

“The mere fact is that we would just like to win a game.

“Performances have been excellent. We would just like to turn that into victory – that would be excellent.

“But in terms of confidence the team have got plenty of it.”

O’Neill says the 1-1 draw at Bolton adequately summed up their recent run of form in which they failed to capitalise on the lion’s share of possession and chances.

“The game would sum up our recent form,” he said.

“In an attacking sense the game at Bolton was never going to be as free-flowing as we have played just recently.

“But defensively we restricted them and, at Bolton, it was difficult to get it down and play it.

“We attempted to do it, and we might have won it.”