O'Neill hits back at Barry
ByTNT Sports
Published 30/06/2008 at 10:46 GMT+1
Martin O'Neill will allow Gareth Barry to leave Aston Villa, but has denied the midfielder's claim that the club made no effort to keep him.
2007-2008 Aston Villa Gareth Barry
Image credit: Imago
Barry will join Liverpool if they meet Villa's valuation of the player, for whom they have already rejected several bids of up to £15 million.
However manager O'Neill rejected his captain's suggestion that the club offered him no indication that they wanted him to stay at Villa Park.
"The chairman and I were surprised at Gareth's comments," said O'Neill, who has spent the last three weeks working at Euro 2008 in Austria as a television pundit.
"Contrary to what he said, we desperately wanted to keep him - and he knows that.
"But if Liverpool meet our valuation, Gareth will get his expressed wish to leave. Until then, he remains an Aston Villa player."
Barry, who has been a Villa player for 11 years, has repeatedly said he wants to leave the club in order to play in the Champions League.
Liverpool's fourth-place Premier League finish means they enter the competition at the third qualifying round.
"There's no going back, it's time for me to move on," said Barry. "I'm desperate to play Champions League football and that's why I have to leave Villa."
"Villa kept saying they wanted me to stay but I have not heard from the manager for weeks,"
"Have Villa offered me anything to try to persuade me my future is at Villa Park, not Anfield? Not a thing."
Villa have been angered by what they consider paltry offers for their star player and will hold out for at least £18 million.
This is the same sum paid by Manchester United in recent seasons for Barry's fellow England midfielders Michael Carrick and Owen Hargreaves.
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