O'Neill stands firm on Barry

Barry: Value must be met

Gareth has made his position clear and after that it's straightforward. We've put a valuation on him and Liverpool value him differently at the moment. That's what the stalemate is, it's nothing else.

Martin O'Neill
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Martin O'Neill has reiterated that captain Gareth Barry will not leave Aston Villa until Liverpool meet the club's valuation.

Villa confirmed a fourth offer from the Reds had been rejected on Wednesday, with the figure below a reported £17million bid.

Barry has also been disciplined by O'Neill after criticising both the Villa boss and the club in a newspaper interview last weekend.

O'Neill rejects the midfielder's claims that the club have done nothing to try to tempt the England international into staying in the Midlands.

The Villa chief has accepted Barry's desire to join Liverpool, but insists the transfer will not happen until the club's demands are met.

Really disappointed

"We're really disappointed that he's not going to be with us, he's made his mind up to go to Liverpool," O'Neill told Villa's official website.

"You can talk and you can talk and talk, but the bottom line was that when he came back from the England game in Trinidad and Tobago he told me he wanted to leave.

"When somebody says they want to leave a football club there's not much else you can do about it. We'd had a meeting a few weeks before that, Randy, myself, Gareth and his agent and he said that Champions League football was what he wanted to do.

"So this idea that we have not done anything in our power to keep him, I'm afraid I totally and utterly disagree. Why on earth would we not want to keep our very top player at the football club when we're trying to improve?

Stalemate

"I think we have made steady improvement - we've gone from 16th to 11th to sixth in the league. This season we're going to try to push on from there. So the one thing you want to do is keep your best players.

"But Gareth has made his position clear and after that it's straightforward. We've put a valuation on him and Liverpool value him differently at the moment. That's what the stalemate is, it's nothing else.

"Gareth has pointed out he wants to go and if Liverpool come up and meet our valuation, he will go. That has been the case since the beginning of June when Gareth said he definitely wanted to go to Liverpool.

"We put a valuation on him and we have based this valuation on a number of straightforward issues - not least that he's actually a top quality player."