Sun Jul 27 18:06:35 2008

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O'Neill thinks Barry will open season with Villa

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Birmingham, England (Sports Network) - Aston Villa manager Martin O'Neill is beginning to think England international Gareth Barry will still be at the club when the new Premier League season starts in less than three weeks' time.

Barry had seemed certain to be on his way to Liverpool earlier in the summer when he criticized O'Neill and was told not to train with the rest of Villa's first-team squad.

However, the Reds have not offered the $36 million O'Neill wants for his influential midfielder, who played in Saturday's Intertoto Cup win against Odense.

O'Neill said after the 1-0 victory: "Having not heard anything from Liverpool for some time it's clear we value him more than they do. The fact they haven't answered us for a week sends out a real message.

"We obviously don't want him to go, so the price we're asking is a fair and realistic one for a player who's so good. In fact I think it's really cheap.

"My own view is that he should hang around for another year and see if we can make further progress as he would want.

"He's been with us for ten years and the crowd reaction was really strong in his favor. I don't think there's any doubt about what we all want at Villa Park. We want him to stay at the club.

"I'm not in the habit of encouraging players to talk to me after games but I told Gareth he'd been terrific.

"You could see, with hardly any training, how brilliant he was. We need him at this club. He would be a terrific loss for us."

(Courtesy of sportbox.tv)