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But they cant offer him CL football and that (if you believe the player) is the issue behind this

As everyone seems to want to make a song and dance about this as an issue I'll offer the following 1. Benitez discussed Barry's availability with O'Neil by phone and was told Vila was not interested in selling 2. Benitez nonetheless decided to test this with a 'mish mash' player swap deal inc Riise, Pennant and Finnan 3. O'Neil rejected this approach again 4. Somehow (?) Liverpool's interest in the player was leaked to the press and fell into the public domain and O'Neil went ballistic 5. At the same time Gerrard was quoted in the national press saying quote ''I know of Gareth, We are great friends....I am desperate for him to sign for us....'' 6. Barry now goes public, says he wants CL football but ''its up to the clubs to sort out'' (nice one Barry) 7. O'Neil is effectively shafted, decides to put a price tag of 18m cash on his head 8. We alledgedly make 3 additional increasing bids short of Villa's tag hoping that O'Neil will be forced to sell his unhappy star Cant be sure but i'd say thats closer to the truth than what i've read here We unsettled Barry, we probably leaked our interest to the press (Benitez has done this before over the ownership issues - why would villa?), we further unsettled the player when Gerrard waded in with his bit, we've doggedly refused to meet villas full price but neither stated that we are dropping our interest, effectively creating further destabilisation of O'Neils plans Defending our position is frankly c**k and you know it O'Neil has not done a Levy here, no hysteria about dossiers or tapping up, but he's obviously pissed off about how we have gone about things. Nothing illegal but completely lacking the class that you once associated with this club. I know why Benitez has done this and i understand but for our supporters to paint O'Neil as being out of his depth and a poor manager is a complete joke Opinions are great but sometimes these threads read like something out of a lewis f***ing carroll novel

For you my friend http://freespace.virgin.net/sanjeev.sarpal...ges/intro.1.jpg

why is it so impossible to accept the facts, Benitez notified his interest in Barry to O'Neil, O'Neil said no thank you very much like, then, somehow, the media gets wind of it (???), our Mr Gerrard then blerts out how much he'd love to see Barry at Anfield, the whole thing kicks off like some west end farce. we make matters worse initially by cooking up some Barry for fringe players swap deal plus a bit of cash, like a cheap Arthur Daley and by now an uptight irishman has got his a*** well and truly out. We reportedly make a few more half arsed stabs at a fee which Villa reject, then we go all quiet neither saying we still want the player nor declaring our interest done and letting both parties move on Yeah, we handled it tres bon and that O'Neil fella is a real first class c*** for not giving us what we want I want Barry at Anfield, he's a player of quality and appeared to combine well with Gerrard and hopefully would slot in very well more so than perhaps Alonso but who knows untill he actually plays, but he is contracted to play for Villa and if we want him that much Villa are entitled to hold out for the best price. They are the ones who are losing a key player here and we are dicking them about So how does that make O'Neil small time? If we have to be c***ish to get him then so be it its a tough game and I realise Benitez has to be resourceful , but lets not get all uppity about having the high ground here eh! O'Neil is a manager who continues to impress me off and on the pitch and we could do worse

I think we are acting like s***s personally but there you go. If its necessary, its necessary, but we are behaving like s***s

I'm sorry but we are not one of the worlds top 5, I'd like to think we were but we are not.At the moment we are fourth in our own league let alone in any other. I dont want to keep harping on about this but frankly if the acquisition of the players so far under the americans is premiership r(d?)elegation fodder then thats just plain daft. It maybe the clubs money not G&H's but Benitez has certainly not been too tightly restrained in his targets Once again, keep the arguements against the americans legit, fannying about with half baked hysterical bulls*** wins no brownie points in a hard bitten arguement Looks like to me the 20m bid for Keane is going through and the Barry deal is subject to a bit of horsetrading with Villa and shifting Alonso. Is that such a bad thing?. How many times have I read in the past that we wanted to be run more business like and how much we hated the sugar daddy/buy the league title ethos of certain other premiership 'giants' Rafa is having to work for success, good, thats what he is paid to do - I'm sure he is happy with that

Levy's statement says they have ''evidence'' of us talking to their players without consent which actually could be a problem to us if the FA finally find their balls, points deduction could really hurt us more than the mancs given our precarious finances Not a time to indulge in risky business is it, and is Keane really worth 20m, he's a cracking player but on a par with Torres ?I struggle with that

Sepp Blatter, an honary member of Real Madrid. truth or urban myth?

Benitez needs to trust the intelligence of his players a bit more Our problems are conceptual

Dont quite understand how you reach that conclusion, apart from their recent record in the premiership they did reach a champions league final or was this tongue in cheek

Keane would be the first casualty i guess if that were to happen (our two principle targets this summer)

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Start of the season is criticial these days, we need to be fielding our strongest side to get the momentum up and running otherwise its going to be the same old story of catch up, I think he's a great player but I think he's letting down his team mates a bit.

Kieran Dyer and Lee Bowyer trying to beat the s*** out of each other during a game. In fact anyone trying to beat the s*** out of Lee Bowyer John terry crying and his penalty miss also had its moments

I'd prefer them both to stay and stew at old trafford, that would be even messier given whats gone on

i didnt see that as a quote

I'd be reluctant to lose Finnan and I think unnecessary at the moment. With things the way they are between Barry, MoN and Villa, it should be them who blink first.

How is it a 'significant change'? .......just interested I think the second half of the quote where he says 'its not even on the radar' is probably just as relevant to how the issue is perceived by the americans The comment 'you can never say never' is obviously a caveat on that

I think until you go through the process of winning the league there will always be an element of doubt All said and done if its meant to be earth shattering it isnt. I like Yossi so I'd probably say that anyway

To give credit where credit is due, i think negotiating a £10m fee for the player in his last year of contract is actually something parry should be complimented for, joking aside

Err i think that a certain mr gerrards been ''talking'' quite a bit on this particular subject actually

: I really dont understand why Universities do this and frankly a little bit mystified as to the criteria they use to decide who to give such an accolade to. But, congratulations to the man, his hearts in the right place even if I doubt his head ever was. Still would like to see him moved on though

I think that Gareth Barry is a shrewd move, I'm not looking from the perspective of how much he may cost, just purely from what he can bring to Liverpool. football is as much about combinations as it is about individual talent - sum of the parts if you like - the international pairing of Gerrard and Barry has been one of the few success of the McClaren era and to tell you the truth its tempting to think it would work better than the Gerrard Alonso pairing I'm not slow to occasionally air my doubts about Rafa but he's obviously picked up on the progress of the Villa captain and is keen to add that to his 'options' - I think he's right. Its the old 'getting the right leg for the table' thing again Maybe if the guy was called Barresma, or Barryadinho or Barrilla we might be happier (cheap shot I kmow). but there is sometimes a kind of reverse snobbery about English players that gets a bit out of hand and Stuart Downing is another case in point. I wont stretch to Milner because I really havent seen him do anything of note either at Newcastle or Leeds Villa have actually punched well above their weight this season, that might in part be because of their developing younger players but alot of credit goes to Barry as well. O'Neil recognizes that which is why he's asking for daft money. I feel that Barry is a very good option for us and if 15 to 18m takes us to another level then its a no brainer

careful though, for every andrei arshavin there's a salif diao