Martin O'Neill believes his number one task this summer is to convince Gareth Barry his future lies at Villa Park - fending off interest from Liverpool and other interested clubs.

The Villa boss is determined to significantly improve his squad but knows retaining Barry must be the priority as preparations continue for the 2008-09 campaign.

The rumour-mill have move into hyperdirve since it was confirmed Liverpool made an offer for Barry's services last week. O'Neill aims to keep his man.

He told www.avfc.co.uk: "Obviously trying to keep Gareth Barry at the football club will be the most important thing that we're trying to do in the summertime.

"A player of Gareth's undoubted quality and ability would take some replacing, so keeping him at Aston Villa is as important as anything we do in the transfer market."

Looking at other moves, the Villa boss continued: "I want to really keep the progress going. We want to try and step forward again and we're looking to add that extra quality to the quality that we have. We definitely need more.

"That gets harder as you go along because you're trying to add to a better side. But we're trying to progress and we have got to do it, otherwise we wouldn't just stand still, we would probably regress.

"There's no standing still in Premier League football because there's always someone looking over your shoulder.

"Look at the sides next season that have got this driving ambition. Tottenham Hotspur have just spent £16-18million on a young kid who has never sampled the Premier League! He looks a really good player.

"So they're showing their intentions. Newcastle will want to compete and Sunderland are averaging 43,000 gates. So it's going to be even tougher next year.

"Being back in the Premier League and having had two seasons to look at it, I believe that for us now to compete we have to add to what we've got."