Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill defended the performance of Moustapha Salifou in last night's UEFA Cup defeat to MSK Zilina.

He told AVTV: "Some of the players came in for great credit in spite of the defeat.

"Moustapha didn't do as well as he did in Prague but he was heavily under the weather before the game. He wanted to play while other players wouldn't have bothered. He wanted to play and fair play to him."