Martin O’Neill needs a win at in-form Liverpool to have a chance of keeping Gareth Barry at Aston Villa.
Villa’s current slump has seen them drop out of the Champions League qualifying places and without top European football next season, Barry is likely to leave.
He was close to quitting Villa for Liverpool last summer, but Rafa Benitez was not allowed to increase his £18million offer and O’Neill managed to keep Barry despite a furious row with him.
That has been patched up and Barry has been in impressive form. He pledged to stay with Villa until the end of the season, but left his options open after that.
Villa boss O’Neill is convinced that if his side get into the Champions League, Barry will stay, but that Premier League football will not be enough.
Villa have not won a Premier League game since the beginning of February, losing three times and taking only one point to allow Arsenal to overtake them in fourth place.
O’Neill has banned Barry and former Liverpool striker Emile Heskey from talking before the game at Anfield but after Sunday’s home defeat by Spurs, Barry said: “The defeat was another big blow to our season. There are nine games to go and the advantage definitely lies with Arsenal.
“Arsenal will have been watching, realising that. Nine games to go, level on points, but we are low on confidence. However, we are one game away from a good performance and turning it around again so we cannot worry about it too much. We have to be positive.
“We have two tough fixtures coming up and if we deliver a performance of the season in one of them, it could catapult us to a good finish.”
Villa’s current slump has seen them drop out of the Champions League qualifying places and without top European football next season, Barry is likely to leave.
He was close to quitting Villa for Liverpool last summer, but Rafa Benitez was not allowed to increase his £18million offer and O’Neill managed to keep Barry despite a furious row with him.
That has been patched up and Barry has been in impressive form. He pledged to stay with Villa until the end of the season, but left his options open after that.
Villa boss O’Neill is convinced that if his side get into the Champions League, Barry will stay, but that Premier League football will not be enough.
Villa have not won a Premier League game since the beginning of February, losing three times and taking only one point to allow Arsenal to overtake them in fourth place.
O’Neill has banned Barry and former Liverpool striker Emile Heskey from talking before the game at Anfield but after Sunday’s home defeat by Spurs, Barry said: “The defeat was another big blow to our season. There are nine games to go and the advantage definitely lies with Arsenal.
“Arsenal will have been watching, realising that. Nine games to go, level on points, but we are low on confidence. However, we are one game away from a good performance and turning it around again so we cannot worry about it too much. We have to be positive.
“We have two tough fixtures coming up and if we deliver a performance of the season in one of them, it could catapult us to a good finish.”
No comments:
Post a Comment