Gareth Barry hailed Villa’s best performance under Martin O’Neill with the message: “Now bring on the champions!”

Villa returned to winning ways with a stunning 2-0 victory over Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday, pulling them level on points with fourth-placed Gunners.

The triumph came a week after Arsene Wenger’s side had beaten Manchester United, who are the visitors to Villa Park on Saturday.

It is sure to be another stern test of Villa’s top-four credentials, with United unbeaten against Villa in the league since the opening day of the 1995 season.

Barry said: “Can we beat United? I don’t see why not. We can give them a good game. Our record against them is pretty terrible but this win sets us up nicely.

“I’ve played in a lot of games so it’s a bit difficult to recall them all but I am sure the manager will say that (against Arsenal) was the best performance under him.

“He was so delighted with the performance – he probably could not believe it himself. We turned over a team who had rolled over the champions the previous week.”

The United match comes with a warning from midfielder Steve Sidwell, that defeat against the reigning champions will undo all their hard work in the capital.

He said: ““It’s one of those you can’t celebrate too hard because we have got Manchester United next week. We need to be consistent now and go on another run. If we go and have another loss like last week then this result counts for nothing.

“If we can perform like that for the rest of the season, then we have a good chance. It just shows people we are a serious contender to pushing the likes of Arsenal.”