Newcastle United's Mark Viduka and Aston Villa's Curtis Davies battle for the ball as the Toon battle for their Premier League survival.

Martin O’Neill today hailed the ‘heart-in-your-mouth’ football his Villa side have served up this season – but bemoaned their failure to finish fifth, writes Brendan McLoughlin.

While the claret and blues’ 1-0 victory over Newcastle at Villa Park yesterday relegated the Magpies, it was not enough for them to seal fifth spot after Everton’s victory over Fulham.

The win did at least see Villa beat last year’s end-of-season points total (62 as opposed to 60) and, despite seeing their Champions League mission end in failure, O’Neill insisted he is delighted with his team – both for the progress they have made and the swashbuckling style in which they have achieved it.

“I’m disappointed we ended up with more points than last season and still weren’t able to achieve fifth,” said O’Neill. “But, and I’m not just saying this for effect, I’m absolutely delighted with the team.

“We made a few changes in the summer time, but eventually one thing that was proved was that we didn’t have the size of squad to cope with February and March and parts of April, which is a crucial time in the season for teams chasing.

“We will try and have a look at it again, but overall I’m delighted with the team.

“We play very openly indeed – maybe that’s why we get 39,000 people coming here every fortnight. We haven’t won the requisite number of matches here at Villa Park, but, having said that, we’ve only been beaten three times.”