Aston Villa have opened discussions with Gareth Barry in the hope of persuading the England midfielder to stay at the club.
Villa boss Martin O'Neill has got involved in a war of words with Liverpool
counterpart Rafael Benitez over Barry after the Anfield club submitted a
£10million bid for the player.
Liverpool hope to tempt Barry to leave Villa Park with the offer of Champions
League football but O'Neill is 'hopeful' he and club owner Randy Lerner can
impress him enough to make him stay.
Villa have not said whether their talks have led to a new contract offer but
add that he has now been given time to consider his options.
O'Neill told the club's official website: 'We've spoken to
Gareth and our situation remains the same - that everyone at Aston Villa
Football Club wishes very strongly that Gareth will stay.
'He still has two years of his contract to run and Liverpool have put in an
offer that, well, it's almost debatable whether it is an offer.
'Things are very much up in the air and the main aim for the chairman and
myself is to try and keep him at the football club. That's what we're trying to
do.
'You can make people see out their contracts but in essence we would want a
pretty amicable solution to all of this and we're still hopeful that things can
be resolved in favour of Aston Villa.'
O'Neill has made clear his indignation at the Liverpool offer, both in its
timing and its valuation of the player.
He has also expressed his anger at Benitez after details were made public.
O'Neill steered Villa to sixth in the Barclays Premier League this season and
hopes further proof of progress will please Barry, whom he sees as playing a key
role.
The former Celtic boss added: 'I understand a career only spans a certain
amount of time and you want to get as much as you can out of that.
'But Gareth has played for England because he plays regularly for Aston Villa
and his England place is not in jeopardy because he's playing for Aston Villa at
the moment - frankly (Fabio) Capello does not need to see him playing in a
Champions League game to be convinced.
'Of course anything can change at the drop of a hat and I'm never overly
confident but what I would say to the fans is that we're doing our utmost and
we'll continue to do so. We want to show Gareth that we mean business.
'The promise here is very, very obvious. We've gone from 16th to 11th to
sixth. We've got the smallest squad in the business and that's something we're
desperately trying to improve.
'We don't really want to be starting off by losing our best players. The only
way for us to make progress is by doing our utmost to keep him.'
