Rafa pleased with performance

First half goals from Dirk Kuyt, Peter Crouch and Luis Garcia were enough to see off Aston Villa yesterday. After the game Rafa Benitez praised his players and said they had a point to prove after the Man Utd game.

"The players wanted to show people how good they are and that they can play good football after the defeat last week and we did that today," insisted the Spaniard.

"It was fantastic to see us playing good football and to score three good goals. We started at a very high tempo, we had good balance and we kept going forward and creating chances.

"We have the quality and the question now is we need to show it all the time if we want to be higher up in the table."