Martin O'Neill has paid tribute to Gareth Barry's professionalism as the England man blocked out constant speculation to produce another towering Villa display.

And the Villa boss has reiterated his desire and determination to keep his skipper at the club despite widely publicised interest from Liverpool.

Barry looked to have secured all three points at West Ham with his ninth goal of the season and though Villa were eventually pegged back to 2-2, the result was enough to secure an Intertoto Cup spot.

O'Neill said: "Gareth might have been affected by the speculation last week, but I thought he was back to his best yesterday - he did splendidly for us. You wouldn't have thought he had anything else other than a win on his mind.

"We're going to be sitting down very shortly and discussing Gareth's future. We won't let this lie. I'm going to see the chairman in the next couple of days with a bit of luck and the two of us together might be able to persuade him to stay. I say persuade him, but he still has two years left on his contract.

"It's quite ironic that Liverpool have gone to great lengths to say that this supposed offer has arrived from an Italian team for Steve Gerrard and he has several years left on his contract. Maybe we should take a leaf out of their book and do exactly the same."

The Villa boss added: "Gareth is a demigod at Villa Park, he has that reputation and he's playing for England and he hasn't had to move to another club to do that.

"He's been particularly brilliant for us. We want to improve the team and our best chance of doing that is to keep our best players and adding some quality.

"The rest I can't really tell you. I wouldn't want to be saying how confident we are of all these things. It's a different era we live in. We will see.

"All I know is he has never expressed one iota of unhappiness in my time at Villa Park. He might not have stayed that long had he been really unhappy before."