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In what has been a much-publicised fall-out between the club and their captain, Barry has set his sights on a move to Liverpool in pursuit of Champions League football.

Villa have already rejected three bids from Anfield, reported to fall short of their £17 million asking price, action that has frustrated their wantaway midfielder.

On Wednesday, the 27-year old revealed that O?Neill, nor chairman Randy Lerner, had made no attempt to talk to him to convince him to continue his eleven year spell with the Midlands-club.


The comments earned the England international a fine and a ban from the club?s training ground on Wednesday afternoon, fuelling the stand-off between both parties.

O?Neill has responded angrily to the claims, believing that Barry?s admission of his intentions to join Liverpool left the club with no other option than to accept his departure.

?We?re really disappointed that he?s not going to be with us, he?s made up his mind to go to Liverpool,? O?Neill told the club?s official website.

?You can talk and you can talk and talk but the bottom-line was that when he came back from the England game in Trinidad and Tobago he told me he wanted to leave.

?When somebody says they want to leave a football club there?s not much else you can do about it. We?d had a meeting a few weeks before that, Randy, myself, Gareth and his agent and he said that Champions League football was what he wanted to do.

“So this idea that we have not done anything in our power to keep him, I’m afraid I totally and utterly disagree. Why on earth would we not want to keep our very top player at the football club when we’re trying to improve?

“I think we have made steady improvement - we’ve gone from 16th to 11th to sixth in the league. This season we’re going to try to push on from there. So the one thing you want to do is keep your best players.

“But Gareth has made his position clear and after that it’s straightforward. We’ve put a valuation on him and Liverpool value him differently at the moment. That’s what the stalemate is, it’s nothing else.”

Valuation

“Gareth has pointed out he wants to go and if Liverpool come up and meet our valuation, he will go. That has been the case since the beginning of June when Gareth said he definitely wanted to go to Liverpool.,” continued O’Neill.

“We put a valuation on him and we have based this valuation on a number of straightforward issues - not least that he’s actually a top quality player.”

Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez is expected to return with an improved bid within the next few days, speeding up Barry?s exit from the club.

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