Victory crucial for Barry

Gareth Barry has admitted that Aston Villa cannot afford to lose tomorrow’s crunch Premiership clash with West Ham at Upton Park.

Barry and his team-mates are trying to display a positive attitude despite Villa having collected only two points from the last six games.

The England Under-21 captain insists that Villa are in a confident mood after their last three performances against Manchester United, Southampton and Arsenal.

But he knows that their good play needs to be turned into something tangible as Villa search for their first victory in more than two months.

They are six points clear of third-bottom West Ham but will be right in the thick of the battle to stay up if they are beaten at the weekend.

Barry said: “We are going to be talked about as relegation candidates but the gaffer has told us that if you think about it, then the more likely you are to get sucked into things.

“The last three games have seen very good performances but you need points. It doesn’t matter how well you play. We need the points still and West Ham is a very big game for us.

“It is very important that we don’t lose. This game is as big as they come but the confidence will be good going into the game because of our recent performances.”

Barry has plenty of admiration for the Hammers but is uncertain as to whether their late upturn in fortunes will enable them to beat the drop.

He said: “I think all season it’s been talked about them having too much quality and over the last three or four weeks they’ve started to show it again.

“I know the quality of people like Joe Cole and Michael Carrick from the Under-21s and now David James is claiming the number one spot with England and I think he deserves it.

“They are on a good run and will go into the game with us feeling confident as well. But will they get out trouble? I’m not too sure.

“It’s getting very close down there and could go either way so I wouldn’t like to say they will get out of it.”

Villa striker Dion Dublin will serve the final match of his three-game suspension for head-butting Robbie Savage in the Second City derby last month.