Please God let this be true: Barry to Liverpool deal finally dead & buried!?
by Dexter on August 15th, 2008
| 333 words |
The Gareth Barry transfer squabble between Aston Villa and Liverpool looks to have finally meandered to a halt; any football fans whose cranium hasn’t imploded with the sheer endlessness of this transfer tale will surely be dancing in the street with unfettered joy.
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The Times reports that Barry, a target for Rafa B all summer long, played in Aston Villa’s first leg Uefa Cup second qualifying round tie against FH Hafnarfjördur, meaning that he would be ineligible to play in the Champions League. The fact that Barry couldn’t be part of any of Liverpool’s initial Champions League games is surely a dealbreaker, and even more incriminating is the fact that Barry asked O’Neill to play him in yesterday’s game.
As large clouds enveloped the tops of the nearby mountains here last night, the future of Gareth Barry with Aston Villa at last became a lot clearer. Barring a last-minute change of heart, it would appear that he is staying with the club he has served for the past ten years. The projected £18million deal with Liverpool seems dead.
As if to signal his decision - although he has yet to voice it publicly - he played a leading role in seeing off the weak challenge of FH Hafnar-fjördur in the first leg of Villa’s Uefa Cup second qualifying round tie. He scored one goal, made another and directed operations from the left of central midfield with authority.
That Barry started said a lot. By asking Martin O’Neill, the Villa manager, to let him play, he made himself ineligible to represent another club in the Champions League until the knockout phase in February. Dare Liverpool resurrect a deal for a player unavailable in Europe? Hardly. (The Times)
The Times does offer one final crumb of hope for Liverpool; if the Reds slip up to Standard Liege - then Barry’s ineligibility in Europe would instantly become irrelevant.
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Tagged Under: Aston Villa FC, Gareth Barry, liverpool fc, martin o'neill, Premier League, rafa benitez, Transfer Rumours
nick reddyoff - August 15th, 2008 at 10:28 am
They’ll just go back to Villa with a cut price offer..not over by a long chalk yet! You see.
I reckon they’ll get him for about £12m. He’s still eligible for the knock-out phases so not totally useless to us. I think Rafa will keep chasing yet don’t worry
fred - August 15th, 2008 at 10:39 am
£18m deal may be dead but there’s plenty of scope for a cheaper deal to piss people off for a while longer yet.
Looney Toon! - August 15th, 2008 at 10:43 am
he’s not going, so why bother commenting on this?
Bosco - August 15th, 2008 at 10:46 am
If the deal doesn’t go through, ths could now allow Benitez to consider a move in January for an even lower price.
Benitez wants him.
redeye - August 15th, 2008 at 10:49 am
liverpool need GB even more now, at what ever price.
Redxibi - August 15th, 2008 at 10:54 am
I think differently about it. It may be a blessing in disguise to get him because now his price is lower and he’ll only be cup-tied for the first part of the Champions League. He will be eligible to play in the second part. Martin Skrtel played in the Uefa Cup in 2007 with Zenit but then he could play for LFC in 2008.
roders - August 15th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Rafa’s main interest in buying barry is for the premiership charge, not the CL, so the fact he played yesterday is irrelavant. Besides, i agree with the comment above that his price must surely have gone down now. A 12m deal might still be a possibility.
nick reddyoff - August 15th, 2008 at 10:59 am
If you think that then why bother commenting Looney Toon you idiot!
Scouse till I die - August 15th, 2008 at 11:09 am
I can’t believe O’Neils insensitivity in playing Barry in Iceland. Barry played last night and scored because he is professional. But did you see him celebrate ? Did he want to be interviewed on TV after the match - no. He wants to be a Red. His heart is not with Villa. And after that display on Wednesday in Belgium we need him. OK he wont be able to play in the Champions League until Feb but thats the price he has to pay for not asking for a transfer. If he had he would have been in the line up on Wednesday instead of Alonso who looked rubbish.
Pay the price Rafa - he’ll be a better buy than Keane
DC - August 15th, 2008 at 11:39 am
One thing’s for sure we need to sort out our left side - this has been urgent ever since Benitez took over and Kewell failed miserably. So either we have to sort out this Barry saga now or get someone else in quick. Otherwise this season will go down the pan again. Dossena is struggling to even merit a place - come backAurelio and please stay fit.
Elsewhere - like the Echo - they are full of praise for Alonso and his stay of execution. The forums are full of people glad we’ve got Alonso not Barry. I find this insane. Alonso won’t even get in the team with Mascherano, Gerrard, Plessis and Lucas available. He was crap on Wednesday and it was there for all the world to see . I felt sorry for Plessis having to play a very difficult match with someone who needs too muc time and can’t compete physically when faced with aggression.
We must sort out the left side now - Barry or someone else. In my humble opinion we should have spent the summer working on Downing if Liverpool knew back in May that they wouldn’t pay the £18m.
LFC4LIFE - August 15th, 2008 at 11:39 am
I think Liverpool should go for Stewert Downing - Younger, better, cheaper than Barry!
RJ - August 15th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Scouse till I die,the price hell have to pay for not asking for a transfer is 3 mill!!(loyalty bonus - cant blame him tho hed want 2 buy a nice house on merseyside!!!)
MOJOJF - August 15th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Gareth Barry will sign for Liverpool next week in a 15.5m deal.
jobbo - August 15th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
I was disgusted at the way the majority of my fellow Liverpool fans have behaved over this saga. Many were singing ’stick ya barry up ya ass’ in the Lazio game - tut tut tut
I blame these fans for our failure in the league. Why on Earth do fans want to keep Alonso - averaging 2 goals a season - Barry is ideal, tommy smith thinks so, guillem balague thinks so, rafa thinks so, i think so - some idiotic reds fans don’t.
Alls I’ll say is that it will be these very fans calling for peoples heads come May. An I will tell them fans, i told u so !
nick reddyoff - August 15th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
If I’m honest I think Alonso is better than Barry, you can’t just judge someone on the number of goals they score! By that rationale the Joleon Lescott is better than Alonso just because he got more goals last season - and that’s plainly not true! I’m not saying Barry wouldn’t be good for the team, I personally just prefer Alonso!
I like Barry, but Alonso (for me) is better. Also, as we all agree, it’s not Rafa who needs to go, it’s the Yanks! Although I think we could do with a winger which Rafa seems to ignore, he’s brought much more quality and balance to the team. As I say, the Yanks need to go, not the manager.
Not to pick a fight here jobbo but people will call for heads to roll if we don’t win the League….and if we don’t win the League, which I don’t think we will, then the management haven’t done their job fully by not getting the correct players for the job! Yes, we’ve got a hell of a lot of good players, but we’ve also got a hell of a lot of alsorans!
NickyJ - August 15th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
ScousetillI die - take the red tinted specs off. Alonso was poor thats for sure but Barry is not the answer. We need a goal scoring winger - Downing would do - but not Milner.
I saw the Villa game last night and Barry did celebrate his goal. He looked pretty pleased and the rest of the team showed how much they value him. Let him stay at Villa. We know what we think of him - remember the chants at the Lazio game.
behar - August 15th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
barry must come in fc liverpool
Dubbers - August 15th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Do you Liverpool fans really expect MO’N to reduce his asking price for Barry? We do not want to sell him, if you want to buy him the purchase price will remain the same. Villa couldn’t care less if Barry can play in the Champions League for Liverpool or not.
Lee - August 15th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
there cant be a chance barry will come now.
he said he wants champions league football and he’s fuckin cup tied now./
thats it? done and dusted.
Ava - August 15th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Why would MON play barry in a european game against minnow opposition as a means of lowering his price? How does that make sense? Villa have stood their ground on a valuation of £18m but because you can’t pay it, they reduce the value of their asset to accomodate you? Hmm.
More likely MON has made it clear that any deal with Liverpool is not worth Barry hedging his bets (staking his career) on, and Barry has resolved to carry on as he would without the speculation. If that means (at the very least) a move is delayed until Jan, then so be it. I think he’s perhaps wised up to the damage he could do his career, and with Fabio watching decided to play on for the club he has spent most of his adult life.
As for the loser who describes MON as being insensitive, this isn’t neighbours mate, it’s football. Pipe down.
MPWHelan - August 15th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
It’s great to hear from Liverpool fans who have paid close attention to the team over the last 2 years and see that Alonso isn’t cut out for the Prem. He made one (very lucky) assist and scored 2 goals all season. He has the ability to stroke a lovely diagonal ball when he has all the time he wants but when he’s put under pressure he ALWAYS plays a blind pass. And in his own half! My big problem with him is his apathy - he has no determination and doesn’t have a winning mentality, which is something we really need to improve to compete with Manc sucm. Gareth Barry (hard, strong, experienced captain) does.
Donavan Ried - August 15th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
SORRY DC YOU DID POST A COMMENT
Red machine - August 15th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Forget £18m or even £12m for Barry, sign me instead on a free.Play Midfield, Both left and right footed,nothing gets pass me in the midfield at 19st11pounds it takes at least 1 1/2 hours to get around me
Red machine - August 15th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
No Really. Sign me
WalesAVFC - August 15th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
[quote] RJ 08.15.08 at 11:40 am Scouse till I die,the price hell have to pay for not asking for a transfer is 3 mill!!(loyalty bonus - cant blame him tho hed want 2 buy a nice house on merseyside!!! [/quote]
think he could prob buy 50% shares in liverpool for that atm
redeye - August 16th, 2008 at 6:16 am
well the truths out there now, the real enemy is not Barry or even O;Neil its that wanker parry!. hes undermined this management consistently with all kinds of nasty tricks ( i could fill a page with them) Its parry thats “coaching” the yanks, they dont know shit about footy. so what is he up to? cause ,at every move , he hurts our club. weve fallen from our esteemed place on high(whether weve been winning or not,we are the benchmark). GET RID OF PARRY and buy Barry for whatever MON is charging, he’ll pay himself off in one season.
redBOY - August 16th, 2008 at 8:19 am
hmm…..if villa were even remotely intrested in sellin GB then u think they would’ev played him in the cup tie on wednesday?……i kno this sounds crazy but i think liverpool should make a bid for joe cole……chelsea dont seem to want him…….
to jobbo - August 17th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
just because raffa thinks so doesn’t mean it is necessarily the right move. Look at kuyt for example, raffa thinks its right to play him out wide, but how many fans would agree with him on that? you blame “idiotic fans” but it is your blind faith in benitez which fuels the fire. only an “idiotic fan” would think that GB would solve our problems, it is clear that it is not in the centre where we need to improve, but (with arbeloa leaving for spain) we need a SOLID rb, not like aurelio, riise, degen or dossena, but someone like Corluka (who ironically could be available for about 8m).
Furthermore we need 2 wide men, barry isn’t a wide man. Just because he has a left peg doesn’t mean that he would be great bombing down the flanks, beating his man and sticking a cross in. and that’s what we need. we dont need a tough tackling dm (got mascherano, plessis), a playmaker (lucas, alonso) or a cam (gerrard)
We need two wide men like David Silva, joe cole, niko kranjcar, diego, ashley young, bentley (missed out on him) van de vaart (missed out on him too) Aaron Lennon, Arda etc.
Sure GB would undoubtedly strengthen our team, but he is not the area in which we should be focussing, anyone can see that! yesterday benayoun couldnt play on the left and kuyt will never be world class. When chelsea won the league they had class out wide, joe cole, robben and duff. UTD last year; nani, ronaldo, giggs, anderson (arguably, plays any and everywhere) this is no coincidence!
These players will stretch teams and get a fair share of goals and assists, and will bring a new dimension to an otherwise narrow liverpool setup. GB would be great, but with limited funds and the pressure mounting, i would rather take the 18m we woulda spent on barry, spend 8m on corluka, put 10m into a winger, raise money from sales of finnan, voronin and pennant in order to afford the first winger, and borrow the money from the board for the second one!
Donavan Ried - August 17th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
to jobbo 08.17.08 at 2:05 pm:…. Couldn’t have put it better myself…………..According to the News Of The World I Quote; ” Xabi Alonso is determine to leave Liverpool because of the way Rafa Benitez’s very public pursuit of Gareth Barry” If there is any truth in this then I for one believe this is just another in a long line of mistakes that Rafa has made….And for those of you who wanted Barry when many of us said we needed both left and right winger, if we did not know what we were talking about then LISTEN to the commnets of Alan Shearer (a ex-Striker and Alan Hanson ( one of our greatest defenders) on MOTD…Tell me angain how right Rafa is for the team if he can’t even get the basics right.
reds manager 2 be {lol} - August 18th, 2008 at 6:19 am
~~~~~~~~~~~~reina~~~~~~~~~~~~
carrager~~~agger~~~skrtel~~~dossena
~~~~~~ mascherano~alonso~~~~~~~~
gerrard~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ babel
~~~~~~~~~~~~keane~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~torres~~~~~~~~~~~~
subs cavalieri, aurelio,degen,arbeloa, hyypia, benayoun, lucas, plessis, ngog and kuyt
sell voronin (4million) finnan (3million) pennant (5million) and that leaves us with 10 - 12 million to play about with. you could even sell kuyt for 8 - 12 million!