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Aston Villa hanging on to Barry |
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 |
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Aston Villa’s close season has not been sweet as there were the war of words between manager Martin O’Neal and Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez over the transfer dealings of Gareth Barry. In their efforts to try and keep their captain, the club has since opened discussions to examine the situation and evaluate plans. Apparently, Liverpool submitted a £10million bid to try and lure Barry to Liverpool after he has expressed his desire for Champions League football. Liverpool offered the perfect opportunity to do so and O’Neill is trying his best to keep Barry at the club. They have yet to reveal if a new contract has been offered but time is now given for him to consider. O’Neill who hit out at Benitez for the manner of the transfer said that “We've spoken to Gareth and our situation remains the same - that everyone at Aston Villa Football Club wishes very strongly that Gareth will stay. He still has two years of his contract to run and Liverpool have put in an offer that, well, it's almost debatable whether it is an offer. Things are very much up in the air and the main aim for the chairman and myself is to try and keep him at the football club. That's what we're trying to do. You can make people see out their contracts but in essence we would want a pretty amicable solution to all of this and we're still hopeful that things can be resolved in favour of Aston Villa.” O’Neill, clearly agitated by the fact that Benitez made the offer public and subsequently unsettle the player, has so far had an impressive season at Villa and sees Barry as playing one of his main roles in moving the club forward. He added that “I understand a career only spans a certain amount of time and you want to get as much as you can out of that. But Gareth has played for England because he plays regularly for Aston Villa and his England place is not in jeopardy because he's playing for Aston Villa at the moment - frankly (Fabio) Capello does not need to see him playing in a Champions League game to be convinced. Of course anything can change at the drop of a hat and I'm never overly confident but what I would say to the fans is that we're doing our utmost and we'll continue to do so. We want to show Gareth that we mean business. The promise here is very, very obvious. We've gone from 16th to 11th to sixth. We've got the smallest squad in the business and that's something we're desperately trying to improve. We don't really want to be starting off by losing our best players. The only way for us to make progress is by doing our utmost to keep him.” Said the former Celtic FC Manager.
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