Chief Sports Writer Martin Swain looks at the real winner and losers of the deal after Gareth Barry leaves Villa for Manchester City.

A good deal for Gareth Barry and, as money is no object to its owners, a decent piece of business for Manchester City.

Getting £12million for a 28-year-old who could walk away for nothing a year from now makes it a not entirely bad day for Villa.

But beyond the cold figures of the sudden exit of Villa’s most celebrated player lies an unmistakeably ominous note for the region’s leading club.

The cost of the season’s dramatic downturn, a recession of results which sent the club’s stock crashing, has come home with Barry’s departure to Eastlands.

Bad enough had Barry gone to Liverpool, last summer’s insistent pursuers, or any of the other top four clubs in England which Villa aspire to catch.

But the fact that he has been wooed by an opponent from the same upper-middle reaches of the Premier League makes it even more worrying for the Villa Park faithful, who have bought into Randy Lerner’s New Deal under Martin O’Neill.

Even allowing for the fact that City have been able to lure Barry to the negotiating table with a £90,000-a-week, five-year contract and the promise of even more illustrious signings to come this summer, this would not have happened had Villa been good enough to hold off Arsenal’s revival in the battle for a top four finish.

In the end, they weren’t even good enough to hold off Everton, whose own distance from the elite corps dominating English football was only too apparent during Saturday’s one-sided FA Cup final.

City have made it clear to Barry and the rest of the football world that it is an elite group they intend gatecrashing – with more conviction than Villa displayed.

No wonder. With exquisite timing, Barry’s exit came on the day that the Premier League earnings made it abundantly clear why Champions League football makes those who reach its territory ever more powerful.

Manchester United raked in an extra £33.7million, Liverpool £20.4million, Chelsea £27.7million and Arsenal £23.4million from their exploits in UEFA’s coveted brainchild.

It meant that while champions United’s revenue reached £90million and fourth-placed Arsenal’s £73.4million, with Everton and Villa languishing far behind with £49.5million and £46.4million respectively, despite claiming the next two positions.

With each year, so the top four’s strength expands as does the size of the task catching them. With a re-energized Tottenham joining City in establishing a clear intent to challenge, Barry’s exit makes the prospect of Villa going backwards ever more likely.

Only this weekend, former manager Graham Taylor – a pretty shrewd reader of the game – estimated five new significant signings were needed by O’Neill to maintain Villa’s status.

Already it is six now that Barry has gone – so O’Neill’s record in the transfer market at Villa is probably the least convincing page of an otherwise impressive managerial CV.

An awful lot of money has gone out of the door bringing in players of UEFA Cup quality when Champions League was the target upon which the club was focused.

Luke Young for £5million, Nicky Shorey for circa £4million, Nigel Reo-Coker for £7.5million, Steve Sidwell £5million, Carlos Cuellar at £7.8million, Marlon Harewood at £4million, Zat Knight at £3.5million and Emile Heskey at £3.5million.

Even bigger packages have gone on John Carew, Ashley Young at a whopping £9.65million and Curtis Davies.

While the first two have become established favourites, their contributions have been of peaks and troughs. Certainly, Davies is still to convince that Albion did not get the better end of the deal when he was sold for around £9m.

It adds up to a patchy record from the biggest spending blitz in Villa’s history.

It would have been worth it, had the team clung to the fourth place it threatened to achieve by the turn of the year, but the implosion which followed now leaves O’Neill under pressure for the first time since he returned to England after his Celtic successes.

As for Barry himself, it must be hoped he does not suffer the same unjustified criticism which came the way of his forebears.

He has been the region’s most accomplished player for some time and, after more than 400 appearances for the club, deserves the chance for one fresh start in a different environment.

His experience carries an uncanny echo of Gareth Southgate’s tortuous exit at the turn of the Millennium.

Southgate, convinced he needed Champions League football after Villa’s FA Cup final disappointment, slapped in a transfer request as a prelude of an intended move to Chelsea.

But Villa baulked at the £6million fee and forced him to hang around for another year, which Southgate completed with admirable dedication before taking the next best thing – a fatter wage packet at Middlesbrough – 12 months later.

Dwight Yorke, too, is regularly scolded by Villa fans for daring to chase greater glory with Manchester United 11 years ago.

All three – Barry, Southgate and Yorke – would feature regularly in any Villa legends XI and yet, until the club’s horizons are more convincingly focused on the game’s biggest prizes, they and their successors will continue to follow the same trail.

Over to you, Martin.