Barry confident in Villa

Gareth Barry is confident Villa will bounce back from their Carling Cup catastrophe by taking revenge on Sunderland.

Wednesday’s shock defeat to QPR burst the bubble of good feeling around Villa Park, but Martin O’Neill’s side at least don’t have to stew over the loss for long.

If their midweek misery isn’t motivation enough, they find themselves up against a Black Cats side who snatched all three points at Villa Park in March courtesy of Michael Chopra’s late goal.

Barry admits it is a game Villa should never have lost, but he insists the same mistakes won’t be made again.

He said: “Our main focus is the league. We lost to Sunderland at Villa Park last year so hopefully we can learn from that.

“It was a game we maybe should have won. Like Wednesday night, teams come here and like to play on the counter-attack and sit back a bit.

“We have learned from last season and we will work out how to beat them. If we can, then that will be a big step up.”

Barry admits he was delighted to be given the captaincy back against the Hoops but insists he will have no problem handing the armband back to Martin Laursen.

The midfielder said: “It is not important. It was nice to have it but there was nothing important in that decision.

“It is always great to captain Villa but Martin Laursen is now the captain on a full time basis.”