Martin O’Neill is convinced Gareth Barry can remain at the ‘very top’ of the game by staying at Villa.
Boss O’Neill believes the Villa captain doesn’t need to prove himself on the Champions League to convince England boss Fabio Capello.
O’Neill and owner-chairman Randy Lerner put their pitch to Barry during face to face talks at Bodymoor on Monday following Liverpool’s £10m bid.
The discussions broke up with no assurances that the midfielder would stay, but O’Neill believes he has put a convincing case forward for the 27-year-old skipper to remain at Villa Park.
“Frankly Fabio Capello doesn’t need to see him playing in a Champions League game to be convinced,” said O’Neill.
“If he can continue in the same form, regardless of what happens at Aston Villa, Gareth Barry can play at the very highest level for the next couple of seasons anyway.
“So even if we don’t make the sort of progress we’re all hoping to do, he might have other options maybe further down the line. The promise here is very obvious. We’ve gone from 16th to 11th to sixth. We’ve got the smallest squad in the business and that’s something we’re desperately trying to improve.
“We don’t really want to be starting off by losing our best players. The only way for us to make progress is by doing our utmost to keep him.
“He’s at a big stage of his career. He’s 27 and he’s been here 10 years.
“He’s due a testimonial and if he sees the club continuing to progress, we definitely want to keep him.”
2 Comments
The balls in Barry’s court. If he does decide to go he shouldn’t leave for less than £15 Million. I hope he stays, but should he decide to go i would wish him all the best as he has been an excellent servant of the club and previously stayed when he could have easily jumped ship
Why would he want to leave now?!! He could’ve left a season or two ago, to Portsmouth or Tottenham which at that point were foreseen as clubs with higher expectations than us after O’leary’s reign. It is proven we are now a force to be reconned with for anyone, we will be in Europe and i’d say with some strength in depth and a few quality additions to the team we could be looking at Champions League football next season anyway…so Barry’s got his wish anyway, I’ve got mates from the Solihull area who are good mates with Gareth Barry and Lee Hendrie, and they tell me that it would never be easy for him to leave us. I reckon he’ll still be with us come start of the season