Barry v O'Neill - I'll take O'Neill on points

So Aston Villa are willing to sell Gareth Barry but only at the price they believe he is worth. The player is starting to spit his dummy out of the pram, who is in the right?

Gareth Barry has been with the club for a long time, his loyalty isn't really in question. Well apart from the time he'd agreed to sign for Portsmouth before Martin O'Neill came in and persuaded him to stay at Villa Park because he had a vision of building something special that is.

He is under contract for another two years, a contract he signed knowing full well what it entailed. It made sure he was a Villa player for a considerable amount of time and they would pay him a lot of money for the privilege of owning his footballing rights.

Now the player thinks he has deserved and move and has complained publicly that the club haven't made enough of an effort to keep him. He says that Martin O'Neill was too busy working for the BBC over the summer covering Euro 2008 that he didn't care about the player.

Now I'm not sure what you think but if it came down to a straight 'Who do I believe' contest between Gareth Barry and Martin O'Neill then I know who I'm backing – and it isn't the last man to wear the England captain's armband.

Waging a public war with Martin O'Neill and Aston Villa is a pretty bad idea. The Villa chairman Randy Lerner is known to be a big fan of O'Neill and is willing to back him to the hilt. So if O'Neill deals with Barry by setting a high price for him and openly stating that he can only leave for that price then so be it.

Gareth Barry will probably leave the club for a price between £15million and £18million but Barry didn't have to drag the club through the mud. Whether moving to Liverpool is a good move for him, I'm not too sure. Aston Villa are one of the clubs knocking on the door of the big four and Liverpool are the club most likely to fall out of that select group of clubs.

I look forward to seeing how the Villa fans react when Barry returns to Villa Park next season. I think he'll get a far worse reception than he thought he'd get and it is all his fault, not Matin O'Neill's.

If you have any feelings on this then please talk about it on the Gareth Barry thread on the Forums.