IT WILL have been said again yesterday that each game this weekend, no matter how important, is worth only three points. Do managers think we believe them when they say this?

Tomorrow at Villa Park provides us with a case study in this theory. Should Aston Villa beat Liverpool - with Gareth Barry in the home side - will people consider it just another three points, or will they see something broader in a home win, something of symbolic significance? They should do.

Liverpool's two games against an average Standard Liege team in the Champions League qualifiers were unconvincing. Their two wins in the Premier League, at Sunderland and at home to Middlesbrough, were skin-of-the-teeth jobs. Liverpool are 6 to 1 on to finish in the top four this season but that idea is worth opposition. You can get odds of 9 to 2 against Villa doing that and while losing at Stoke is no line of form to recommend itself, the signing of James Milner, albeit for an inflated fee, is another example of Martin O'Neill gathering resources, English mainly, for a long campaign.

It may be around October that Villa settle into a winning run but, given their fixtures before then, if they start collecting three points here and there then their odds on breaking into the top four will be worth re-examination.

There are clubs that feel on the up at certain times, only to flatter and fall away. Villa are not brilliant by any means, and have spent more than they would like on Luke Young, Nicky Shorey and now Milner. But there feels something solid about what O'Neill is constructing there, something solvent too. There is a contrast with Anfield not reflected in bookmakers' odds.