Martin O’Neill today warned Liverpool and any other circling Premier League vultures that Villa won’t allow crown jewel Gareth Barry to be sold on the cheap.

O’Neill remains hopeful of hanging on to Barry and, should the midfielder decline to sign a new contract, the claret and blue chief would rather see him stay for the remaining year of his deal and risk him walking away for free next summer.

The Villa boss has promised to stand by his pledge to allow Barry, the subject of four failed bids from Liverpool a year ago, to move on this summer should he be offered a crack at the Champions League.

And while he concedes Villa will have to lower their price tag significantly from the £18m demanded 12 months ago, he insists there will be no knockdown price for the 28-year-old.

“I’m sure that with a year left to run the price would be different (to last year) but, by the same token, he probably won’t come cheaply in this day and age,” said O’Neill,” who could hope to fetch as much as £12m for the player.

“Gareth and his agents are pretty happy on the things we have talked about and we would like him to stay here.

“I want him to stay at the football club. I would be really pleased if that’s the case. If he sees the year out I would still be really happy with that.

“My daughter’s worth £2m and she’s yet to make her debut! I would cost more than £2m!”

And O’Neill revealed he would have found it hard to stomach if he had been left in the lurch like Barry last summer.

“One of the disappointing aspects for Gareth was that Liverpool were claiming they could only afford this certain sort of money and then spent £20m on Robbie Keane almost overnight,” added the boss.