Steve Sidwell has top four on agenda at Aston Villa

Nov 18 2008 by Bill Howell

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STEVE Sidwell says Villa’s win at Arsenal means they can now be considered serious contenders to the big four’s dominance of the Premier League.

But the former Reading and Chelsea midfielder has challenged Villa to find consistency as they seek to build on the historic win at Arsenal by beating Manchester United this weekend.

“We will let other people do the talking about the top four,’’ he said.

“We know what we want to achieve and we have got the ability to achieve it.

“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.

“But it comes down to consistency. If you want to be at that top end of the table it’s about being consistent.

“That performance won’t matter if we don’t go on a run of good results.

“We can take hope and pride from the Arsenal win and take it into the two home matches.”

Sidwell says Villa will be looking for more of the same against United after stopping the rot after successive league defeats.

“It was a nice reply from (Middlesbrough) last week. It was a great day out for the lads and I thought we fully deserved it,’’ he said.

“It’s one thing to play at The Emirates but to come away with a win was fantastic.

“But we can’t celebrate too hard because we have got Man United on Saturday.

“If we go and have another loss like last week then this result counts for nothing.”