O’Leary plays down clash

Aston Villa 0 Liverpool 0

O'Leary leapt from his dugout midway through the first-half to protest a second crunching tackle by Steven Gerrard which went unpunished.

He became embroiled in a finger-jabbing exchange with Thompson but insisted afterwards he had no problem with either Gerrard or any members of the Liverpool bench during the 0-0 draw.

O'Leary said: "I've got no complaints in 90 minutes of action-packed football there is always going to be passion. I've no problems with Phil, who is just as passionate as me. I just complained about a couple of the referee's decisions."

O'Leary claimed he was delighted with the way his side hit back from their opening day setback at Portsmouth and were unfortunate not to claim all three points.

He added: "It has been a very encouraging day. We should have won but we also needed Thomas Sorensen to make a wonderful save at the end and I was delighted with him.

"I thought we played some good football and gave the fans something.

"I try to play attractive football and bring an edge to our play and excite people. I want to play how Manchester United and Arsenal play. To do that you have to be committed and put the challenges in and get the crowd going and that's what we did today." Liverpool boss Gerard Houllier also played down the dugout clash but admitted his own anger at the first-half injury sustained by Emile Heskey.

Heskey needed treatment after a challenge by Ronny Johnsen and struggled on until the middle of the second half when he was substituted with a shin injury. Houllier said: "I know David was angry but Phil and I said, what about the earlier tackle on Heskey who is injured? In a game which is very tight you are going to have incidents and things like that. I think the attitude and the spirit of the game was all right."

Houllier paid tribute to the way his side hit back after their opening day defeat to Chelsea at Anfield.

And he insisted that more displays of the kind would help his side get their title campaign up and running.

But O'Leary will have been much happier with the way his team rebounded from their opening-day defeat at Portsmouth to push Liverpool close. Juan Pablo Angel rattled a post and Gareth Barry also came close to getting his manager's home campaign off to a flyer. O'Leary will have been similarly delighted with the form of his new goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen, whose series of fine saves kept Liverpool searching for their first win of the season none more vital than the point-blank effort which denied John Arne Riise five minutes from time.

ASTON VILLA: Sorensen, Delaney, Mellberg, Johnsen, Samuel, Hendrie (De la Cruz 87), McCann, Barry, Whittingham, Angel (Dublin 89), Vassell.

LIVERPOOL: Dudek, Carragher, Henchoz, Hyypia, Riise, Diouf, Murphy (Biscan 87), Gerrard, Kewell, Heskey (Baros 58), Owen.

Referee: P Durkin (Dorset).