Luis Suarez scored late on to cancel out Chris Herd's first-half goal but Villa defended stoically to see out a 1-1 draw and McLeish is convinced it was no more than they deserved.

"We hung on a bit second half but we deserved to get something," said McLeish.

"We started well first-half, we were very positive. We tried to get up high and pressure Liverpool.

"(It was an) Incredible, brilliant performance from the players. I'm very proud of them. They deserve all the praise in the world. There are a lot of kids I've got out there."

The Villa boss brought three of those youngsters off the bench after the break, including handing a Premier League debut to Samir Carruthers.

Fantastic

But McLeish was also delighted to the efforts of some of his more senior players on a day his side were under considerable pressure.

"I thought Gabby (Agbonlahor) and Emile (Heskey) did fantastically well in the first-half and caused Liverpool problems," he added.

"Nathan Baker had a crack game and James Collins was colossal alongside him."

And McLeish feels this point goes some way to making up for last week's match at home to Chelsea in which Villa clawed their way back to 2-2 late on only to lose the match 4-2.

He added: "It gives us a huge lift. We felt aggrieved we didn't get that lift against Chelsea where we threw it away at the death. This was reward for the efforts of the team over the two games."