Villa top brass Martin O’Neill and Randy Lerner have held talks with Gareth Barry – but they broke up with no assurances that the captain will stay.
Boss O’Neill and chairman Lerner met with Barry and his agent Alex Black at Bodymoor on Monday following Liverpool’s £10m bid for the Villa skipper.
O’Neill remains steadfast in his desire to keep the 27-year-old, and is determined to do all he can to see Barry remain at Villa.
“We’ve spoken to Gareth and our situation remains the same – everyone at Aston Villa wishes very strongly Gareth will stay,” said O’Neill.
“Anything can change at the drop of a hat and I’m never overly confident, but we’re doing our utmost and we’ll continue to do so. We want to show Gareth we mean business.
“Things are very much up in the air and the main aim for the chairman and myself is to try to keep him.
“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 things can be resolved in favour of Aston Villa.”
And O’Neill insists the Villa skipper hasn’t expressed any desire to leave. “We want a solution everyone’s happy with and the last thing you want is keep an unhappy player – but Gareth Barry hasn’t expressed his unhappiness,” said the boss.
7 Comments
It’s very simple Martin. You need to spend the money to keep him. If you don’t he will go. You may not like it but that is the situation you face.
The talks are not in deadlock. Randy Lerner and Martin O’Neill have spoken to Barry and have given him time to consider things.
That is a far cry from being in deadlock. Why does the Express & Star insist on putting a negative spin on every story coming out of Villa Park?
Jonah, it’s not just the Ex and Star that come out with the claptrap it’s all of them. Our press are the scum of the earth and nothing suits them better than to put a negative slant on things. If Barry stays then what’s the betting that they report it along the lines of “Barry’s lack of ambition”.
Well said Mace: Having just criticized the E&S I have to admit that a certain other local paper’s reporting of what was on the OS is even more diabolical.
I just hope they were realistic with their offer.
I don’t think its about money, I think its about proving to him that the club’s ambitions match his own.
It is about proving that we can move on again next year,and signing top players now like chelsea and spurs are doing and not leaving it to late as we have done in the last 2 transfer windows.