Jamie Carragher has stood firm and defended his controversial claim about Aston Villa despite their threat of legal action.Carragher sparked backlash for saying ‘Villa will never be Manchester United‘ and telling their fans to ‘shut the f*** up’ amid his belief of a hierarchical chain in football.Carragher apologised for his comments on Villa, but still believes that they are not as big as UnitedGettyThe club released a statement last Friday to say they would initiate legal action against the Liverpool legend, although the threat has reportedly been dropped.Carragher issued a swift apology for his comments, which were made in a discussion about whether Villa head coach Unai Emery, who is set to sign a new deal, would go to United.However, the former centre-back has upheld his belief, insisting that Villa remain below United in terms of prestige.Carragher doubles downIn his column for The Telegraph, he said: “At this point in the history of both clubs, Villa Park is a better place to be than Old Trafford.“But Aston Villa are not bigger than Manchester United. That statement is not intended to stir the hornet’s nest.”“What is beyond doubt is that by every metric defining a club’s size, United eclipse Villa: honours won, fanbase size, financial power, history, global status,” Carragher added.“In that head-to-head, it’s not even close. It did not strike me as controversial to suggest that when a club of United’s size wants Aston Villa’s managers or players, traditionally they get them.“I understand that some Villa supporters do not want to hear that. Plenty have made that clear.”Carragher also addressed why he apologised, saying: “My apology to Villa last week was for the language used on The Overlap. “It was intended as a tongue-in-cheek response to supporters on social media. I wanted to say, ‘Back off, and stop cherry-picking the points you disagree with and ignoring the rest’.Carragher also explained the reasoning for his apology, insisting that the language he used was playfulGetty“There was a context to my argument, so I take exception to anyone suggesting my remarks are intended to ‘keep Villa in their place’ or impede their ability to challenge the top clubs by emphasising how much I admire their coach and believe bigger clubs will be looking at him. That is nonsense.“The idea that being a former Liverpool player means being protective of ‘the elite’ or condescendingly looking down at others is a wilful distortion.“No one needs to lecture me about the football pyramid. I watch my son, James, wherever he plays, from Inverness Caledonian Thistle in Scotland to Oldham Athletic in the National League and now Wigan Athletic in League One. “My heart and soul is as much in grass-roots football as the top level.”Villa told to ‘get on with it’Former Premier League midfielder Danny Murphy, an ex-teammate of Carragher at Liverpool, believes he was told to apologise.“Knowing Jamie, I didn’t speak to him about it but I would guess that his apology was forced by others,” he explained on White and Jordan.Jordan can’t understand what Villa intended with their threat of legal action and said that they needed to ‘just get on with it’talkSPORT“I would imagine that certain establishments would have said, ‘You need to do this, or else’, which is just the way the media world works.”Simon Jordan suggested the same thing earlier this week, and he also explained: “I can’t, for the life of me, imagine what is actually legally actionable, I don’t understand what’s legally actionable.Jordan added: “I would imagine that Unai Emery wasn’t particularly impressed with the necessity for the owners to get involved.“There’s one thing defending your pitch, and we’ve all had it, we’ve all been antagonised. “I remember the newspapers writing an article when Man City were first bought by Abu Dhabi (United Group), and one of the first games they played was us in the League Cup, I remember Victor Moses leaving Micah Richards on his backside repeatedly in that game. “The headline was, ‘The haves against the have nots’, and I was so offended. ‘Have nots? What, just because we haven’t got some Middle Eastern consortium come in?’ “But you just have to get on with it, because that’s what the media do and that’s how they write headlines, and that’s what goes with the business of it.”