Villa boss O'Neill insists Barry has been 'undervalued' by Liverpool
Martin O'Neill's resolve to keep Gareth Barry at Aston Villa shows little sign of weakening after he claimed Liverpool's £10million valuation of the midfielder woefully undervalued him.
The Irishman fielded an enquiry from Anfield late last week and is set for talks with Villa's owner Randy Lerner after this Sunday's trip to West Ham.
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Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill insists Liverpool have undervalued their midfielder Gareth Barry
Despite Villa team-mate Patrik Berger urging Barry to make the move, O'Neill appears as determined as ever to place a new contract in front of his star performer that will be sufficient to keep him at Villa Park during his prime.
Asked whether he thought Barry was undervalued at £10m, the Villa manager said: "Absolutely, without question. This lad is playing for England. I have to say that the way the whole thing was mentioned, it was hardly worth answering. I will be speaking to Randy and we will have real proper talks about it next week.
"He thinks a lot of Gareth, although the last thing you want to do is to be running around giving people guarantees.
"Gareth has got two years left of his contract to run and he has not shown to me that he is unhappy at the football club.
"Liverpool's offer would be like me bidding £20m for Lionel Messi. Barcelona would no doubt say: 'So what? That's not saying that Messi would want to come anyway.'
"The disappointing thing for me is that this whole thing is being conducted in the open.
"This has been conducted outside the way that we would normally be conducting business."
