Gareth Barry playing dirty with Aston Villa

Matt Dickinson

I always had Gareth Barry down as a straight guy, a decent footballer, a
humble team man, the sort you want to see succeed. Silly me. If you thought
that Cristiano Ronaldo's move to Real Madrid was the tawdry business of the
summer, you have not been paying attention to Barry's attempts to get
himself a transfer to Liverpool, whatever it takes.

Last weekend Barry interrupted a holiday in Florida to talk to a reporter
from a Sunday red-top newspaper. The majority of the conversation appears
to have been spent criticising Martin O'Neill, his manager at Aston Villa.

This would be the same O'Neill who arrived at Villa Park and, in one of his
first decisions, stopped Barry being sold to Portsmouth on the cheap. The
same O'Neill who showed such faith in Barry that the club captain has
become a stalwart of the England team under Fabio Capello.

His thanks was a laughable piece saying that O'Neill was more interested in
commentating on Euro 2008 for the BBC than retaining his captain. About all
there was to recommend the article was that at least it made a change from
the clumsy leaks about Liverpool's interest and Barry's desire to move to
Anfield that have mysteriously found their way throughout the summer into a
friendly newspaper.

Such shabby behaviour might make sense if Villa were adamant that Barry was
not going to leave under any circumstances, but O'Neill and Randy Lerner,
the Villa owner, are intelligent men. They can understand why Barry's head
has been turned by the approach from a Champions League club. They know
that every player has a price when the big clubs come calling.

By any reasonable estimation, that price has to be close to £18million,
given that Michael Carrick and Owen Hargreaves each joined Manchester
United for something similar and Barry has overtaken both rivals in the
England pecking order. For a 27-year-old established international player
with two years left on his contract, it is the going rate.

The interesting question now is whether Liverpool want to spend that sum or
whether they even have it available. One can only guess from the
increasingly desperate behaviour of Barry and his genius of an agent, Alex
Black, that those are questions they are asking themselves.

Surely Black is not so daft to have have promised Liverpool that he could
get his player out for considerably less than £18million. Surely he was not
in such a mad rush to pull off the transfer that he erroneously assumed
that Rafael Benítez, the Liverpool manager, had a huge budget and would
simply pay what it takes.

The questions take on particular pertinence, given that Villa are due to
report back to pre-season training on Thursday, when Barry, in theory, will
return as captain. It makes you wonder whether he is so embarrassed by the
idea of having to meet O'Neill face to face that he has resorted to
anything, even attacking his own club in the hope that they will wash their
hands of him for the £13million on the table.

He is not the first footballer to stoop to such tactics, but instead of
wasting time attacking his manager, Barry could more usefully have picked
up the phone to Liverpool and instructed them to increase their offer. He
must be wondering if they do not value him so highly after all, which is
something we should all be asking, given his recent behaviour.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/aston_villa/article4244853.ece