Aston Villa will resist Liverpool's attempts to sign
Gareth Barry for around £15m, with Martin O'Neill determined that
the price for the England player should be closer to £20m. The
Villa manager is resigned to losing Barry, after accepting that the
midfielder wishes to play Champions League football next season,
but he is adamant that the 27-year-old will not be allowed to leave
unless Liverpool return with a significantly improved
bid.
Liverpool have already tabled two bids for Barry: a £10m deal
involving what O'Neill described as a "mish-mash of players" and a
£12m cash offer. Both were rejected and O'Neill remains upset with
the way Liverpool have handled negotiations. Details of the first
bid, which was ill-timed anyway, were leaked on Merseyside. O'Neill
will not allow Barry's departure on anything other than his
terms.
Liverpool are keen to avoid antagonising O'Neill further. They
were forced to return to the negotiating table after failing with
their second offer and there was dialogue between Anfield and Villa
Park yesterday as the two clubs sought a compromise. Liverpool may
well try to structure a deal that sees Villa receive £15m in cash
and up to a further £3m in add-ons, although whether O'Neill is
receptive to that idea remains to be seen.
The Villa manager, who had tried to convince Barry that he
should stay on at Villa Park for a further 12 months, in order to
see if he could achieve his European ambitions at the club where he
has spent the last decade, could still be tempted by the
availability of fringe players at Liverpool. He is likely to be
disappointed in his pursuit of the striker Peter Crouch, who is
expected to join Portsmouth, but Yossi Benayoun, the Israel
midfielder who arrived from West Ham last summer, has emerged as a
possible Villa signing.
O'Neill spent yesterday discussing his targets with Paul
Faulkner, a club director who is a close ally of the owner, Randy
Lerner, having returned from Euro 2008, where he has been working
as a pundit for the BBC. With Villa's squad short of numbers,
O'Neill is expected to be busier than many of his counterparts this
summer. Steve Sidwell, the Chelsea midfielder, is predicted to be
among his recruits while Fulham's Jimmy Bullard is also believed to
be on the club's radar.
