Player profile: Gareth Barry

Much like a fine wine, Gareth Barry seems to get better with each year. A player of incredible versatility, the Villa stalwart is accomplished at left-back, on the wing or in the centre of midfield. It's difficult to see how Villa would have maintained their Premiership status without Barry's contribution in the 2005/06 campaign and his importance to the team was recognised by O'Neill who, after persuading Barry to stay at Villa Park, rewarded his loyalty with the captaincy. Barry repaid the faith that O'Neill had shown him with a season of unbelievable consistency; more often than not Barry is at the heart of everything that Villa do well and, although he is not the quickest, he has a fantastic knack of extricating himself from difficult situations meaning he is rarely caught in possession.

On top of this, he has a great range of passing and commendable composure - he scored nine goals in the past season, none better than his great solo effort against Spurs; a slaloming run than ended with a beautiful right-footed(!) finish. Towards the end of the season Barry operated in a more central role to great effect leading to O'Neill to compare him with Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard. If he continues to improve - he is still only 26 - Villa can look forward to a midfield driven by his creativity, tenacity and experience.

This is an extended version of the profile section of this site which we will be updating over the course of the summer