Senior football correspondents lunching with Sky TV in midweek were polled on which outsider was likeliest to break up the cosy cartel the “Big Four” have established in the Premier League. The vote was roughly 50-50 between Tottenham and Aston Villa, which surprised Martin O’Neill, for one.

When I told him, the Villa manager shot back: “I know who you’ll have gone for - Spurs.” He is right, but O’Neill and his team, who overachieved in finishing sixth last season, are stronger for their various acquisitions over the summer and well equipped to continue the improvement started when the quirky, loquacious Ulster-man replaced David O’Leary two years ago.

Relegation candidates under O’Leary in 2005-6, when they staggered in 16th, the pride of the Midlands were up to 11th in O’Neill’s first season and defied the odds when, with the smallest squad in the Premier League, they broke into the top six last time.

Is a Champions League place realistic? “If I didn’t think we could do it, there wouldn’t be any real point in hanging around,” he says. “It’s difficult, but not impossible. We’re setting out with the intention of improving on sixth. Reality will probably hit us, maybe on Sunday night [after their opening match at home to Manchester City] but we’re looking to improve. To do it, obviously we need to keep our quality players, like Gareth Barry.

“Then, if we were able to break into that top four, acquiring better players for the following seasons should be easier. I’m not saying it’s impossible now because playing in the Premier League is a strong ambition for players anyway, but Champions League is clearly what the best ones all want.”

O’Neill takes issue with that, and not just because the Holy Grail that is the European Cup has tempted Barry to join Liverpool in one of the sagas of the summer. That transfer perhaps became more unlikely on Thursday when Barry became cup-tied for Europe after playing for Villa in the Uefa Cup, but O’Neill says: “If players are driven into feeling that the Champions League is the be-all and end-all, most clubs have no chance. It’s a great competition, but it isn’t everything. Nottingham Forest [for whom he played from 1971-81] won the European Cup twice, and those days were fantastic, but it was the [domestic] league that meant everything to us. European ties were, in Cloughie’s words, ‘a day out’.”

Despite the constant distraction of Barry’s on-off transfer - “this has only been going on for 14 weeks” - the Villa manager found time to make six significant signings, with Brad Friedel, arguably the most consistent goalkeeper in the Premier League in recent years, plus two England full-backs, Luke Young and Nicky Shorey, and two centre-halves, Carlos Cuellar and Curtis Davies, recruited to bolster a shaky defence. Steve Sidwell has arrived from Chelsea to reinforce the midfield, and O’Neill is not finished yet, having made bids for James Milner, Newcastle’s England Under21 forward, and Kevin Doyle, the Reading striker.

“We operated with a very small squad last season, when we were lucky with injuries,” he says. “It wasn’t by design, but that’s the way it was, and it was a surprise that I was able to operate without a recognised right-back for the whole season. Olof Mellberg moved from centre-half to play there for a good part of it, and Craig Gardner, who is essentially a midfield player, helped out as well.

“Regardless of what happened with Gareth Barry, we would still have been looking for players. We needed to strengthen defensively. Last season we scored a lot of goals [71 in the league] and conceded a lot [51]. People might say that was quite entertaining and we’re capable of scoring a lot again, but this time we’ll try to do better to stop them going in. We played two games [at Tottenham and Chelsea] where scoring four away from home wasn’t enough to get the points.

“I’m hoping to improve the side a bit more before the end of August. We’re in the Uefa Cup, and that necessitates a lot of games.”

To his manager’s irritation, Barry continues to dominate the agenda. “It’s like a Catch22 situation,” says O’Neill. “Gareth told me he wanted to leave to play in the Champions League, and Liverpool could afford him that opportunity immediately. I’m not saying I am able to bring that to Villa, and I’m certainly not saying we’re good enough at this moment, but at some stage some club like ours is going to break through. Everton have done it once, and it’s part of my remit to try to do that.

“Aston Villa have actually won the European Cup, even if it was a long time ago [1982] and that’s what I aspire to. If I thought getting into the top four was too difficult, and that we should just get on with playing in a mini-league for fifth place, that would be really boring.” As ever, God is on the side of the big battalions. “In terms of the money aspect, the game has changed immensely, and it is very difficult for clubs outside the top four to keep their best players, but it should not be impossible,” says O’Neill.

“Over the past couple of seasons we’ve improved, and that improvement, maintained over a number of years, would do us fine. I’m not sure steady improvement ever actually happens in the game, but if there was such a thing, then maybe some players might be prepared to accept that and go along with it.”

On the vexed issue of “player power”, O’Neill supports Arsène Wenger. After losing Alexander Hleb and Mathieu Flamini and being held to ransom by Emmanuel Adebayor, the Arsenal manager opined that contracts were now not worth the paper they were written on. “I totally agree with him,” O’Neill says. “The players are in control. You don’t mind that so much when it’s top-quality players, it’s when mediocre players are in control that you find it’s crazy.

“In my playing days, the players had no power whatsoever, and we always felt we were hard done by. In my time the PFA [players’ union] were not people you went to for help. Now the PFA do a wonderful job for the players, almost too wonderful, to be honest. In my day we yearned for a halfway house. It’s gone miles in the other direction – too far. Now, when players play three consecutive good games, the agent is knocking on the door to ask about a new contract. The players have more than their share of power today. A contract is a contract, and it should be worth something.”

O’Neill also addresses the Premier League’s Respect initiative, which is designed to improve the behaviour of players and managers towards match officials. “It’s a good thing because nobody ever wanted to see the excesses, such as referees being chased around the pitch by half a dozen irate players. We didn’t want that, didn’t want to lose the spirit of the game.”

The Villa manager, who has hardly been a model of propriety himself down the years, admits: “Selfishly, I’m concerned. I’m signing up to something that I hope I’m going to abide by.”

He is smiling, but he isn’t joking.

ON TV TODAY
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Feeling the pinch: why Premier League clubs are counting the pennies

- Martin O’Neill has been more active than most in the Premier League transfer market this summer - signing seven new players for Aston Villa - but the global credit crunch, along with soaring wage bills, has put the squeeze on football even at the top level

- Despite big-money moves for Robbie Keane (£20.3m, Tottenham to Liverpool), David Bentley (£17m, Blackburn to Tottenham) and Andy Johnson (£13m, Everton to Fulham), overall spending is well down on the amount splashed out in 2007

- Even if Villa’s Gareth Barry, inset, does join Liverpool and Tottenham’s Dimitar Berbatov goes to Old Trafford, last year’s figure will not be surpassed n Professor Tom Cannon, of the University of Buckingham’s business school, said: ‘Last year we wouldn’t have seen the Barry deal collapse over what seems to be £1m, or Man Utd taking so long over signing Berbatov. Deals are collapsing over what seem to be relatively trivial sums’

- A study published last week by the PKF Football Industry Group revealed that more Premier League clubs are increasing the performance-related element in players’ salaries. In 2006-07, fewer than a third applied a performance-related formula to 10-25% of the first-team squad’s salary. That figure has risen to 78% in a year