ASTON VILLA owner Randy Lerner is backing Martin ONeills bid to dish out new long-term contracts to the clubs big guns.

Villa boss ONeill wants to keep skipper Gareth Barry, who is a £12million target for Liverpool.

And he also wants to tie down Ashley Young, Gabby Agbonlahor and John Carew on lengthy new deals.

It will mean smashing the clubs current wage structure.

Barry, on £50,000 a week, is the highest earner at Villa Park but could double his basic pay at Anfield.

But American chairman Lerner met ONeill this week to discuss strategy. And the Ulsterman revealed: Randy is well versed in these things and it did not take a long conversation to find he shares my ambition to keep Gareth.

We want to build a side here but it should not surprise me now that players are being mentioned with the big four.

If its not Gareth this week it will be Ashley next week and Gabby the week after. Maybe John Carew.

I will give everything in the summer every consideration. We would naturally address the size of the squad. But I want to start from the position of the players who have done fantastically well here and Gareth Barry is one of them. There are others who I want to keep at the club who I believe should have extended contracts.

But it is a fact that top-quality players want top-quality football and that means the Champions League. Thats what we have to aim to get to.

Villa can leapfrog Everton and move into fifth place which offers the only definite UEFA Cup slot.

ONeill takes his team to Merseyside tomorrow on the back of three successive wins and 15 goals.

And he added: It has become a very important game.

I wouldnt want to play down the significance of it.

When you look at it there is only the one league position up for grabs for Europe and we have put ourselves back in contention.

That is all we could hope for.

We are not going to go up there and be cagey.