Express & Star

Angry Villa boss Martin O’Neill today hit back at Rafa Benitez’s claims they had had transfer talks over Gareth Barry.

O’Neill is irritated the Liverpool boss suggests his Villa counterpart knows “everything about my idea” from a call 20 days ago regarding his bid for Villa captain Barry.

“I’ve never denied Rafa Benitez called me. That’s always been there,” said the Villa boss.

“I did get a call about 20 days ago. How else would I know (about their interest in Barry)?

“He says we had a private chat and he knows everything about where my ideas and I know everything from him.

“The thing is – I didn’t have an idea. Well, apart from the idea of getting him off the phone as I was going to a reserve game at the time.

“His idea was to ask about Gareth Barry and I said: ‘No.’

“I said I’d need to speak to the chairman (Randy Lerner) and I’d assume he (Lerner) would be of the same opinion as me, and he was.

“Without taking breath Benitez then started talking players in a possible swap. He was racing way beyond me.

“He’s now deemed there to be on on-going dialogue for three weeks. It is simply not true.

“He’s called me twice – the second of which was on the Friday and only after I’d rang to complain his bid was in the local newspaper the very next day.

“By that time I still had not had time to speak to my chairman.

“I haven’t enquired about his players. He mentioned players.

“He was a million miles from where I was coming from and it’s nonsense to suggest I knew everything and that so did he.

“And if he’s now saying nothing will happen until the end of the season, then why did he phone me?”

Benitez said: “I was surprised by part of his comments. I had a private conversation with him 20 days ago.

“He knew everything about my idea and I knew about his idea. He said he wanted to talk with his owner.

“We needed to do an official movement and he knew that because I was talking with him.

“He was very clear so we must wait until the end of the season and then we’ll try again.”