Are We Wasting Our Time On Barry?

So it appears that we have had yet another bid for Gareth Barry, rejected by Aston Villa. This transfer has really turned into an epic saga. That's our fourth bid for the player by my reckoning and yet it seems we are no closer to securing his signature. So enough is enough as far as I'm concerned, this deal is a dead duck and it's time to walk away from it.

As I've said here before, I think Barry is a quality player who would have been a great addition to the side but it's just not happening and there seems little point in us wasting any more time on it. Villa's valuation of the player is just completely ridiculous. They are said to be holding out for £18-£20 million which is just crazy money for a guy who will shortly be 28yrs old. We have offered them a fair price but they seem totally unwilling to compromise, so let's just leave it at that and move on. (click here)

I have respect for Martin O'Neill's managerial record but the guy can really be a right tit at times. I've no problem with him trying to hang on to his best player or trying to get as much money for him as he can, but his behaviour throughout this whole affair has bordered on the lunatic, and I think he's been left with an awful lot of egg on his face.

He firstly attacked Liverpool for supposedly leaking their interest in the player to the local press ie the Liverpool Echo, claiming that this was not the way the club had conducted its business in the past. This was later proved to be total rubbish and the story had in fact originated in the Midlands and hadn't been reported by the Echo until a day later, so if anything the leak would more likely have come from his own club, but O'Neill refused to let the truth stand in the way of a good rant and his moaning continued.

For a guy who claimed he didn't like to see this kind of stuff played out in the media, he just wouldn't shut up moaning to the press about it and even had his little soap-box out while he was working as a pundit on BBC during Euro 2008. Another thing he moaned about was what he claimed to be Steven Gerrard putting more pressure on Barry by saying he'd love him to be playing at Anfield when he was asked about it by a journalist after one of England's end of season friendlies. O'Neill claimed it wasn't right for Gerrard to be making such comments about a player from another team but the fact that 2 or 3 of his own players were also telling journalists that they'd love to have Peter Crouch playing at Villa Park, seemed to have escaped his attention.

But I think the most embarrassing and bizarre part of this saga came for O'Neill from the words of his own player. Throughout this whole process Moaning Martin had continually stressed that he was doing everything in his power to keep Barry at Villa Park but then the player recently revealed that he hadn't in fact heard anything from the manager for weeks. For daring to speak out, the player has been disciplined by the club with a fine of two weeks wages and has been told he is unwelcome at their pre-season training.

You get the feeling that O'Neill thinks he is making some kind of point and is stubbornly, or perhaps stupidly, sticking to his guns. I think he is in danger of biting his nose off to suit his face because if Liverpool walk away, he will be left with an extremely unhappy and most likely an extremely unpopular player with the club's supporters, who will walk away for a mere fraction of what they are currently being offered, in a year or so. I've heard some Villa fans say "it's not the money, it's the principal", but if that's the case why stick a £20 million valuation on Barry, instead of just saying he is not for sale at any price?

Of course, the biggest loser if this situation is not resolved will be Barry himself. He's already said on the record that he wants to leave, which certainly won't have endeared him to the Villa fans, and he's been disciplined for it. If he remains there, he will no doubt be stripped of the captaincy, will most likely play less games and this may well lead to him losing his England place.

If this deal can be completed in the short term then I'd be very happy to have Barry at Anfield, but if it seems that it is going to drag on for much longer, then I think we should walk away before it's too late. As things stand at the moment, if this deal collapses then I think ultimately the only losers will be Villa and Barry, but if we waste too much more time on it then we also risk coming out losers in the deal.

My concern stems from what happened during the last pre-season transfer window. This time last year we were haggling with the mancs over Heinze. In truth, that deal always looked unlikely to go through so it was disappointing that we seemed to have put all our eggs in one basket and spent too much time on it and when the deal finally collapsed we didn't have enough time to bring in anyone else.

I felt this was a big mistake on our part at the time and we suffered the repercussions of it when Daniel Agger picked up a serious injury early in the season. He was a big loss to our defence and although we soldiered on with the personnel we had, it wasn't until Skrtel arrived in January that we really started to look solid again at the back. Maybe it wouldn't have been possible, but I can't help but wonder if we hadn't spent so much time fruitlessly chasing Heinze last summer then perhaps Skrtel could have been brought in earlier and what a difference he might have made to our season. Of course, that's all water under the bridge now but I just hope we don't end up making the same mistake again and spent too much of our time chasing Barry.

We all know how vital it is for us to make a strong start to the season but if we are to that we've got some problems that need to be addressed. Whether people like it or not, it looks like Alonso is on his way to Juventus. Added to this we've got Masch, Lucas and if he recovers in time, Babel heading off to take part in the Olympics. So as things stand at the moment the midfielders we will have available for the start of the season are Gerrard, Benny Onion, Pennant, I suppose Kuyt would now be considered a midfielder and perhaps we will also use Plessis from our reserves.

I think it's fair to say that it's not exactly a very strong selection and if we pick up an injury or two, it will obviously get even worse. If we did manage to get Barry in it would certainly strengthen things, but we do badly need to add at least another couple of bodies into that midfield as soon as possible or we could be left playing catch up in the league once again.

I know it may seem at the moment that there is plenty of time left in this transfer window but judging from Parry and Co's past record, we are probably the slowest club in the game at tying up these transfer deals. We have already spent two months trying to make this Barry deal happen, so let's make Villa one more take it or leave it offer and if they refuse it then good luck to them. We've got to move on to other targets before it's too late.

On a final, brighter note, it was great to see Degen and Dossena completing their moves to Anfield during the week. (click here)I haven't seen either of them play before but they both have impressive CV's as attacking full-backs and hopefully they will provide us with the extra width that we need to stretch teams. I was also delighted to see Dagger back in training. I really rate this lad, probably because he reminds me so much of the Great Alan Hansen but I consider him a very important player for us and hopefully it won't take him too long to shake off the cobwebs after being sidelined for so long.

Another couple of quality signings for our midfield and a quality striker, and we'll go into the season in great shape. As ever, lots of names have been mentioned but let me throw one into the mix that I haven't heard discussed and I'd be interested to read what you guys think. One player who impressed the hell out of me during Euro 2008 was the Spanish midfielder Senna. I know he's about 32 but he looks in great shape and could be good for at least another three seasons. His performances for Spain can't have escaped the attention of Rafa and as he's currently plying his trade at Villareal, I'm sure he'd jump at the chance of a move to Anfield and given his age we might pick him up for a knock-down price. In our big games next season, imagine having him alongside Masch playing behind Gerrard with maybe Barry on the left and Babel on the right. The opposition would need a bloody machinegun to get through that lot!