It may not have been the Champions League, but this is the kind of night that could whet Gareth Barry’s appetite for sticking around at Villa Park. The England midfield player, whose desire to leave for Liverpool last summer was born of a craving to play regular European football, scored the winning goal last night as Aston Villa overcame an accomplished Ajax side to place one foot in the last 32 of the Uefa Cup.

Barry struck his third goal of this European campaign shortly before half-time and proceeded to produce a barnstorming performance that inspired Martin O’Neill’s team to maintain their advantage. His surging runs, his pressing high up the field and his tight passing, as immaculate as it was imaginative, had an impassioned Villa Park crowd singing his name.

O’Neill, the Villa manager, singled out the performance of Gabriel Agbonlahor, who finished the night on a stretcher after injuring both knees in a collision with the goalkeeper, as “a masterclass in one so young to play the centre-forward role like that”. O’Neill added: “I thought Gareth Barry was exceptional. The idea at the start was for him to go and join in \ but in order to do that, you have to have someone capable of holding the ball up and I thought Gabby’s hold-up play was immense. To win tonight we needed some big performances and we got them.

“Ajax have some very fine players but we have some excellent players too, not only in terms of technique, but in terms of heart and commitment. The term ‘character’ is overused, but from 1-1, to fight back when we were second fiddle at that stage, was tremendous.”

Agbonlahor, who has cuts to both knees, will be checked today but O’Neill said that John Carew, rested last night because of fatigue, should be available for Sunday’s Barclays Premier League game away to Wigan Athletic.

Villa hardly touched the ball for the opening five minutes, obliged to snap at the Dutch team’s heels while Marco van Basten’s players caressed the ball around with delightful ease. Not that the home team minded unduly. Set-plays have long been a cornerstone of the Villa game and, in the eighth minute, they went ahead when Martin Laursen, the captain, rose high above Kenneth Vermeer, the goal-keeper, to head in Ashley Young’s corner. It would be overstating it to say that Vermeer was on the canvas, too early to call this a knockout blow, but it set the tone. Villa Park, already high on the adrenalin of the return of European football, erupted.

There was an electricity in the Birmingham air and the players sparked off it. Ajax dominated possession throughout the first period although, ironically, they equalised after a corner. Urby Emanuelson crossed and, at the near post, Thomas Vermaelen headed in, with Villa strangely having switched to a zonal marking system. Klass-Jan Huntelaar and Gabri almost profited as they competed to turn in another corner from Emanuelson. Fortunately for Villa, neither could convert.

With Villa struggling for air, Agbonlahor was obliged to chase a few lost causes as Ajax maintained more than their fair share of possession. Yet Villa still managed to find an advantage by the interval as Barry, having huffed and puffed his way through the first half, scored with a composed side- footed finish after Young, profiting from a sharp one-two with Nicky Shorey, sent over a low cross that Oleguer could only toe-poke as far as the England midfield player.

Just as Nigel Reo-Coker’s equaliser away to Litex Lovech on the stroke of half-time in the previous round had a galvanising effect, Villa came out with their tails up after the break last night. They should have had a penalty when Leonardo Vitor Santiago tripped Agbonlahor, but it was a sign that Ajax could not live with Villa’s tempo.

“In the second half, we didn’t play football any more,” Van Basten, the Ajax coach, said. “We played a lot of long ball and physical football, but we have a young side.”

Aston Villa (4-5-1): B Friedel — L Young, C Cuéllar, M Laursen, N Shorey — J Milner, N Reo-Coker (sub: C Gardner, 82min), S Petrov, G Barry, A Young — G Agbonlahor (sub: C Davies, 90). Substitutes not used: B Guzan, S Sidwell, M Harewood, Z Knight, M Salifou. Booked: Cuéllar, Gardner.

Ajax (4-1-2-3): K Vermeer — B Silva (sub: G van der Wiel, 78), Oleguer, T Vermaelen, U Emanuelson — R Lindgren — Gabri, J Vertonghen — L Suárez (sub: L Vitor Santiago, 60), J Sarpong (sub: D Cvitanich, 56), K-J Huntelaar. Substitutes not used: H Vonk, E Sno, V Anita, R Schilder.

Referee: T Einwaller (Austria).