Martin O'Neill, the Aston Villa manager, says it is "more important than ever" to bring in new signings after he resigned himself to losing Gareth Barry this summer.

O'Neill is loathed to lose his captain, and although he has accepted defeat in his bid to hang on to the player, he will demand Liverpool meet his £18 million valuation of the player before the ongoing saga can be resolved.

Olof Mellberg, Thomas Sorensen and Patrik Berger have already left since the end of last season plus Scott Carson, the on loan Liverpool goalkeeper. But O'Neill is determined Villa will avoid a repeat of last season where they had the smallest squad in the Barclays Premier League, despite finishing sixth.

"We're hoping to try to add to the squad," he said. "The players did fantastically last season but we had the smallest squad in the Premier League.

"We wouldn't want that to happen this season so we're going to address it. Even if Gareth had decided to stay, we were still going to address it.

"But now it's even more important to do it than ever. It's the time for anticipation now. Players are back for pre-season training and, with the European Championships out of the way, it's obviously all systems go for everyone."

O'Neill has spent much of the summer working as a pundit at Euro 2008 but insists that has not hindered his plans to bring in new players

"I went out and did some games for the BBC," he added. "I was working there for two or three days in the week but then coming back and working here.

"It was not as if I spent three weeks out in Austria - not that I should have to explain myself to anyone other than one person at this football club (owner Randy Lerner)."

O'Neill is also aware his squad have to shift back into gear immediately due to their Intertoto Cup commitments which begin in just over two weeks.

"My normal build-up would be a wee bit more leisurely, getting players into it and building into it," he added. "But here we have to try and get into competitive mode very early on.

The club will fly out to Switzerland on Tuesday and will play FC Wil on Thursday and FC Zurich 48 hours later