O'Leary standing by backroom staff

Aston Villa manager David O’Leary has intimated that he wants his right-hand men Roy Aitken and Steve McGregor to also be given extended contracts if he is to put pen to paper on a new deal.

O’Leary all but tied up a new three-and-a-half-year deal last month with Villa chairman Doug Ellis which will keep him with the Midlands club until the summer of 2008.

But the former Leeds boss has made it clear that he needs assistant manager Aitken and fitness coach McGregor to be given contracts of a similar length.

O’Leary stated after meeting Ellis five weeks ago that “the couple of things to tie up are not big matters but the chairman could turn around and they could become big matters”.

It appears now that he feels the efforts of Aitken and McGregor as part of Villa’s revival are those sticking points.

O’Leary said: “The contract thing has been going on for about five weeks. In general terms it is okay from my point of view but there are several people here helping me.

“If I am going to be here for that length of time, I need them here with me. Hopefully that can be done soon and we can all sign at the same time.”

Villa maintained their push for a European spot via last night’s 1-0 home win over Tottenham courtesy of Nolberto Solano’s fourth goal of the campaign.

But Aitken knows it is vital for Villa to bring in new blood during the January transfer window if the momentum is to be sustained.

He said: “All credit to the players because as a group they work so hard day-in and day-out and we have asked a lot of the same bodies week-in and week-out.

“We’d like to bring in some more players and hopefully in January and then next summer we can strengthen the group and really start pushing towards the top end consistently.

“If we picked up three or four injuries, we would be thin on the ground so that’s why we need to strengthen in terms of the senior professionals in the team.

“The younger boys who have come have been asked to do a lot at this stage of their careers and we’d like a few more senior players to bolster things.”

Another rookie, Northern Ireland Under-21 midfielder Steven Davis, was given his full debut against Spurs and created a favourable impression.

Aitken said: “He did very well. The lad has been around the first-team squad for the last year or so. He got a bad injury last season but he’s played consistently well for the reserves this season. He came in for Lee Hendrie in a similar role, an attacking midfield player, and had a great game. He’s a strong character.

“He’s on the fringe of the Northern Ireland team as well, and is only 20. He’s one of the young ones that has given us back-up to the squad and we needed those players this year because the squad has been small.”

Spurs’ new coach Martin Jol is confident his side is also looking to bring in new blood but is taking encouragement from the commitment of his players despite suffering a sixth successive league defeat.

He said: “Everyone can be worried about the situation because the Premier League is a hard league, but I think we have the spirit and mentality to get over these sort of problems.

“We want to have clean sheets like before and we want to play attacking football. If you don’t create and score and only defend, you will lose most of the games.

“There are a couple of players we could do with and then you will see that we will improve our game by 10, 20%.”