The arrival of Brad Friedel from Blackburn is imminent.

The American was spotted at the Belfry earlier today and will be holding talks over personal terms as soon as he has finished his sandwich!

Anyway, it is a cracking signing. He may be 37 but how old is David James?- the best keeper in the Prem last year.

It appears the Younes Kaboul signing also has legs. A firm bid to Tottenham was set to be faxed off today, I understand. Not last night as had been reported.

And I would not discount Villa, even at this late stage, hijacking a move for Steed Malbranque either. It all depends, as ever, on finances.

But I think Shaun Wright Phillips may well end up at Portsmouth after all. We shall see.

It's been an interesting 24 hours on the Villa patch.

I spoke to Nigel Reo-Coker yesterday afternoon, just for a brief time as we look ahead to tomorrow's game with Odense. You may since have seen his quotes either in our paper, on our web-site or on the club's official site where they also appear.

Today I've done an interview for tomorrow's paper with a former Villa favourite. I'll keep his name under my hat but he had some interesting things to say about Friedel and Gareth Barry.

Changing the subject, I've seen some interesting responses to my blog yesterday.

I'm only too happy to have more dialogue with the internet fans.

My tone was indeed tongue in cheek when referrring to "geeks". But do you blame me, such is the personal abuse on the message boards at times. So I tend to steer clear.

I don't want to sound like David O'Leary but I have an interaction with quite a few Villa fans, some built up over the last eight to ten years covering the club, and some from the foreign trips into Europe- the so-called hard-core.

There is always much to tell. Including the 'real' story behind Gary Rowe's assertion that he set me up with the Sunderland- O'Leary story.

He did call. That I cannot deny. But the ball was already in motion because of a private tip-off days earlier from a Board member at Villa Park who believed that O'Leary was trying to engineer a move away.

Within a month or two we had that ridiculously fanciful piece of reporting that the Villa players had put together a "statement" at a lack of investment by the former Chairman Doug Ellis.

One player gave an interview on a Friday afternoon. He has recently left the club after enjoying a £40,000 a week deal agreed by the former boss. That player was forced to apologise to the rest of the dressing room face-to-face on the Monday.

By that Tuesday some senior players were giving evidence against O'Leary at Villa Park.

O'Leary was, after all, trying to engineer a move away from Villa Park. And he did so with a seven figure sum in his back pocket.

The truth, as they say, is a far, far greater thing.

I've noticed one or two internet geeks getting a little hot under the collar over my assertion that season ticket sales were "below expectation" at Villa.

I'd not made a big thing of it but nevertheless I had indeed made that point.

And despite the fact that the club would like you to believe that almost 25,000 have been sold for this season, I'm sticking to it.

Before you lot go hopping around your bedrooms, pulling out your wireless connections and losing your Dungeons and Dragons memory sticks, I'll explain.

Ask any reporter and they will tell you that the summer months between May and mid-July can be a bit of a bind.

Those weekly chats with the manager have dried up, the players are on the beach and your saved quotes from the last game of the season have been dripped into the newspaper and long dried up.

So where do you get your stories?

I'll tell you. Players, although you have to know them well enough for them to trust you with information that cannot have come from them- if you get my drift; from agents- who will almost certainly always tell you that Villa 'ARE' interested in his player but that a bid hasn't yet been fired off; from club staff- many and varied, from other journalists who have their own links to clubs and I'm sure there should also be another category marked: "Others".

My point is this: that stories can be found from a variety of sources- sometimes good and sometimes bad.

Now to the season ticket story.

Some weeks ago, possibly as long ago as six, I asked the club's media department if I could have the latest sale figures.

Season ticket stories come out every summer on a quiet day and are a Godsend to clubs (just ask Albion, Wolves and Blues) and writers because they are always written with a positive spin but can also fill back pages.

My request seemed to hit something of a brick wall at Villa though.

Weeks passed. I then received an email detailing a series of emails between the press and ticket offices at Villa which indicated that they were not yet ready to release any information. There was also a reference to wanting to "hang" a particular slant on the eventual story.

Anyway, it wasn't a problem. I was never that bothered about the story in the first place.

I then got a second email from Villa, about three weeks ago, saying that the season ticket request of mine was being dealt with but that the news was poor at the moment so 'could I wait a few weeks for when the news would be good?'

I have kept both emails.

Again, I was not bothered either way and when a good source at Villa confirmed to me that sales were low I decided a few words at the bottom of a blog would suffice.

So that's the history. Villa are now claiming that sales are seven per cent up on this time last year and I have no reason whatsoever to doubt them. A figure approaching 25,000 is blummin' good business by anyone's stretch of the imagination.

My point is this: Villa sold over 26,000 last year. They have sold less than 25,000 now. And a couple of months ago they told us that 1,400 people were on a waiting list.

So there are a missing 2,500 by my calculations.

The whole issue is not worth haggling over.

Villa will once again be the best supported club in the Midlands by a country mile.

I read the headlines on Wednesday morning, as most of you probably did.

"Barry runs gauntlet of hate!" they barked, referring to Gareth Barry's appearance at Walsall in the friendly at The Banks' Stadium.

That's not how I saw it.

I'm not having a pop at the reporters there that night. They'd got a job to do and after a quarter of an hour their lap-tops had spirited off a few hundred well chosen words well before their deadlines.

And a headline of: "Barry booed, ignored and cheered" isn't quite as punchy.

I actually feared for his safety when Villa took the slightly unusual step of hinting at his inclusion mid Tuesday afternoon on their official web-site.

But as it turned out there was no such hostility, other than 20 minutes of booing from a few hundred angry souls.

After that Barry's committed performance and a rather less than exciting first half saw Barry largely ignored by the majority of the 2,000 Villa fans.

When he left the field after an hour some booed, some clapped and others sat with their hands firmly on their laps not wanting to side either way.

One of the latter, Steve Gough (he runs the away coaches for Premier Ents and incidentally he is running another down to Reading next weekend- so give him a call 01543 426 426) admitted to me today that Barry's performance had won a few fans over but that it would take a lot more of the same for him to be back on side.

It was also pleasing to see Ian Taylor, a modern-day cult figure if ever there was one but now working for Barry's agent Alex Black, mixing with supporters, signing autographs and having his picture taken.

Barry's big test will be if he is included against Odense at Villa Park on Saturday.

Martin O'Neill is certainly looking at that possibility, although he is an unlikely starter. What sort of message would that send out to the likes of Reo-Coker, Young, Petrov and Sidwell?

An even bigger test yet for Barry is the opening day of the Premier League season when a full house at Villa Park will want to voice their anger at his public fight to get away.

But from what we have seen over these last few days Barry can do just that.

What he needs to do now is what he should have done all along. And that is to get his head down, graft on the pitch and say zip-all to the media.

A text message received from Gareth only a few days ago indicates that that is exactly what he intends to do, and in the meantime we can only hope that Villa and Liverpool bang their heads together and get a fee agreed.

Because the worry as I write this on Thursday afternoon is that Portsmouth will sell Sulley Muntari to Inter Milan for £12.7million, with supposed interest from Rangers in Pedro Mendes, and will immediately blast Villa out of the water in terms of both bids and personal terms for Shaun Wright-Phillips and Younes Kaboul.

I spoke to Martin O'Neill yesterday on the telephone and although he won't comment on individual transfer cases it was pleasing to actually hear him admit that Villa have to spend big: "just to stand still."

Incidentally, I'm told Wright-Phillips would jump at the chance of a move to Villa over Pompey.

That will change if an offer of £60,000 a week comes his way from 'appy 'arry.

It has developed into the best card game since Stu "The Kid" Ungar played in the 1980 World Series of Poker and won the main event, defeating poker legend Doyle Brunson.

You've guessed it. The Gareth Barry saga is set to run and run.

The latest twist is that Liverpool have let it be known, with a whisper to a source, that they are now focussing on other targets, namely Robbie Keane, and will let Villa sit and wait.

Don't believe a word of it.

Sure they will have to wait, but they've no choice!

Martin O'Neill has seen this possible occurence all along and is 100 per cent convinced, I understand, that Barry's agent and Liverpool must have drawn up a fall-back plan should their plan to get him out of Villa back-fire and leave him in limbo, which is precisely where he remains despite the fact he is back at Bodymoor.

Barry is back training as Villa could not exclude him for any longer than a fortnight.

Expect him to be training alone this weekend, with possibly Stephen O'Halloran and youngsters like Barry Bannan- who shares his agency- to keep him company.

That is a great, great shame.

But did O'Neill avoid a face-to-face meeting by not showing up at Bodymoor between the hours of 9am and 1pm- again, absolutely not.

O'Neill was never going to be there and Barry probably knew it.

Will they have face-to-face showdown talks? Nope. Probably not.

I'm expecting more of an icey edge to their future meet. There is little left to discuss as the card game between O'Neill and Rafa Benitez takes shape.

The plan is that Villa will get on with this weekend's game at Odense- they fly out tomorrow with as few as eight supporters having paid top whack of £675 for one night's accommodation to go out with the team- and then they will crack on with bringing in those half-a-dozen players they are so, so desperate for.

Talking of Odense, that four-day coach trip was replaced by a much more luxurious two night stay in Denmark for the price of £399, including match ticket.

One Villa couple I know, whose surname sounds like a Simon and Garfunkel classic without the 'troubled', took a gamble by paying for two £20 flight returns to Copenhagen, knowing that the official trip would be somewhat extortionate.

Sort of puts Villa's package in a different light.

And I know you are keen to know if Stiliyan Petrov's phone is working. The answer: yes- and he was top quality.

He rang whilst sitting in an ice bath at Bodymoor. I have not got a TV phone but that is what he informed me.

I guess that could have been his excuse for making him making the conversation last: "no more than ten minutes", as he stipulated.

I tried my damndest to get to the half-hour mark but I could hear his teeth chattering.

I'll be speaking to Stiliyan Petrov later today and no, I won't be asking him about Gareth Barry's return to training.

Why?

It's not that I wouldn't like to. More so that I have been politely asked not to and one wouldn't want to rock the boat.

Villa went out of their way to make sure there were no tricky questions at the friendliest ground in the world last night.

No player had a chance to splurt a word out of line because they shuffled onto the coach faster than anything we saw in that rather depressing second half.

"Can we speak to a player?", asked one reporter. "No, I don't think so", came the reply.

"Go on- just one of the younger lads about how great it is to play for Villa?".

"No- they're all on the bus", he answered, safe in the knowldge that the bus was the other side of a huge stand and there was no immediate way of knowing either way.

Still, at least the manager faced the music. Although his utterances about messers Barry and David Bentley were as brief as Zat Knight's concentration levels.

There's me thinking you would have to be at least 6'7" to outjump a giant from a corner.

So what has O'Neill learnt?

Well, that he needs a goalkeeper, a right-back, left-back cover, a centre half, a ball-winner, a right-winger and a striker who can finish.

So who were Villa linked with today? Yes, a left-winger. Although to be fair, I think 17 top flight clubs would fancy Stewart Downing in their squad.

He has also learnt that he needs a fit Martin Laursen more than ever, that Nigel Reo-Coker is no full-back, that Steve Sidwell is more than a little rusty after six or seven weeks out, that Wilfred Bouma's attitude in wanting to play is spot on but that he might need to ease back in and that he needs to act as a matter of urgency to bring in a stack of new players.

Lincoln saw the very best of Villa and the worst.

Ashley Young was at his mesmerising best one minute and the other was too busy giving some lip to the referee or to Lincoln's Scott Kerr.

John Carew scored a cracker and looked a real menace. Then limped off with "tightness" which probably suggests that with his new ginger hair he has indeed got Scottish blood somewhere.

Wayne Routlede was .... well, at times he almost dazzled as he operated in so much space that he must have thought he was at the helm of the Starship Enterprise.

But he mostly failed to park it through the asteroids.

Marlon Harewood? Proved just why he is used so often as a 20 minute battering ram. His one miss when clean through on the keeper will have been talked about by the locals long into the night.

Villa were terrific for almost an hour and then woeful.

But such are pre-season friendlies that I am not in the slightest bit worried.

These games used to be just a simple footnote at the very bottom of a daily or Sunday paper: Lincoln 3 Aston Villa 1 it would state in minute print. And you would spend the rest of the morning wondering who got the Villa goal.

Craig Gardner's injury is a big worry though.

Time for O'Neill and the board to get moving and quick.

Which brings me back to Petrov. A couple of text messages have arrived over the last hour or so.

The first: "He is having his lunch", and the second: "he is having treatment".

I am expecting a third: "His mobile battery has ran out".

So Villa's InterToto fairytale will begin in the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen.

The road trip to Lincoln tonight promises to be rather more of a nightmare.

It's hard to know who was more relieved at the weekend: the kindly figure sat next to me in Zurich as we watched Villa struggle through 90 minutes against a much fitter side, or the Villa tour operator who had had the foresight to oragnise a coach trip to Odense a month ago?

The 'kindly' figure next to me as Villa were beaten 2-1 by FC Zurich?

I thought with his grey-hair and immaculate manners that he must be the local journalist as he introduced himself. But the conversation soon included things like: "When I managed Estonia at Wembley last season", and "I used to manage Martin Laursen's old club Silkeborg in Denmark", and: "when I moved to Bayern Munich".....

It's the sort of stuff you hear occasionally from a drunk in any bar.

So I "googled" his name there and then... and he turned out to be Odense's assistant coach, a chap called Viggo Jensen.

There it all was: two spells at managing Silkeborg, two at Odense BK, Bayern Munich as a player, eight caps for Denmark etc....

As the game wore on he soon started to draw immaculate diagrams of Villa's set-pieces.

"You can't possibly learn anything from this game", I said, thinking that Villa were not only at half-strength but half-hearted.

"You can always learn", he smiled back.

He asked if Ashley Young is always allowed to roam freely across the pitch. "Blimey", I thought. This bloke is paying attention.

So I told him Villa's likely line-up this weekend: Harewood in goal, Young at left-back, Sidwell up front in a 4-5-1.... I hope he took it all down.

Odense- (I love their old nickname "The Mackerel Tabby Tomcats" better than their modern day "Tigers") will be a tougher nut to crack than Lincoln, and probably a tougher nut than Zurich.

But get it right and it could be an expensive season ahead for Villa fans- hence Steve Gough's move to get the coach trip booked a month early.

I've travelled with his motly crew for a few years now and it's always good fun. There's a right mix of characters, young and old. I met the fan they call "Vicar" on Friday night in Zurich. He didn't wear a white collar, and seemed to blaspheme more than most, if not all, men of the church I have met.

You can join them in Denmark by calling Steve on 01543- 426426 but take a change of clothes or two as you won't be back til Monday!

Now back on to Lincoln- I'm travelling this afternoon with Geoff from the Villa web-site. The trip should take us at some point to a country pub but will invariably take us on the M6 beforehand.

My solution for solving congestiion on that slab of concrete (in the highly unlikely event that I were ever to be asked). Simply banning lorries, motorbikes, 4x4s and any coloured car that isn't grey.

The sunshine is excruciating.

I'm sat here up in the stands of the brand-spanking new AFG Arena in St Gallen watching 20-odd blokes in red T-shirts and navy blue shorts running about on lush green grass.

I'm sweating cobs in the press box. God only knows how they arer coping in the sweltering heat.

The AFG I suppose best resembles Coventry City's Ricoh Arena, although it probably holds around 20,000 rather than closer to 30,000.

The line of executive boxes along the main stand are impressive.

A shopping mall is underneath, and a casino. I wonder how many of these players have spotted the staircase behind the goal to my left with "Grand Casino" in big letters?

Marlon Harewood and John Carew have taken off their shirts to reveal boxers' physiques.

They are in a foursome with Craig Gardner and Moustapha Salifou in a passing drill watched closely by Seamus McDonagh.

In fact all the senior pros are split into groups of four with the younger lads on the far side of the pitch doing some stretching exercises under the scrutiny of Martin O'Neill, who looks to be the only man in the stadium wearing tracksuit bottoms, and John Roberston.

We're 45 minutes in and the players are now taking a well-earned drinks break.

The cones are being collected. Wayne Routledge and Ashley Young are joined by Harewood in a game of keepy-uppy. Salifou is doing some stomach exercises. As if his washboard isn't flat enough?

Routledge yelps like anm excited puppy. I think one of the other two has dropped the ball.

Stiliyan Petrov has the best idea. He's sat down a yard or two away topping up his tan.

With a game tomorrow afternoon in Zurich and a swimming pool session booked this afternoon, the session is brought to an end.

I've got a relatively free afternoon then. Just have to file a couple of tales for the Saturday Mail garnered from last ngiht's 6-0 win in Wil.

It's a tough job but someone has to do it.

Well, that's one in.

Welcome Steve Sidwell, a player who bossed Villa's midfield and left Barry and co chasing shadows in a 2-0 defeat at Reading in February 2007.

It's been a wasted year at Chelsea.

If his hunger is still there, and there is no reason to suggest £60,000 a week for a year on the subs bench would have dented that too severely, then this is a shrewd piece of business.

I was in Martin O'Neill's office on Monday for an hour or more.

Some things were thrown up in that conversation with regards to the Barry saga which opened my eyes.

At some point I'd like to be able to put some of these pieces of information into print, but now is not the time.

There was much made of Steve Finnan being 'key' to the deal for Barry in a couple of papers. Not true, but Finnan's name has been put forward by Villa as one potential solution.

But take it from me, Martin O'Neill is not prepared to deal on anything less than Villa's terms.

And Villa fans, who despite the Sidwell signing are still a frustrated lot, should take heart from that.

Suffice to say O'Neill is seething. His anger towards Barry's agent Alex Black is venomous to say the least.

And having spoken to Black recently, I sense that the feeling is rather mutual.

I have already spoken of my belief that Barry is not to blame. There have been better talkers at Villa in my ten years of covering them: Merson, James, Delaney, Southgate, Mellberg spring to mind but in terms of a gentleman only Southgate pushes Barry close.

But the whole saga leaves a sour taste.

Two years ago Barry's head was turned by O'Neill's arrival. And from the manager's point of view, every promise he made to Barry- every single one- has been kept.

Villa have risen from 16th to 11th to 6th, Barry has gone from nowhere under Sven to somewhere under the 'great umbrella one' to first choice under Capello.

Few would disagree that Barry really should have reported back for training and kept his head down.

But, as I have said at length in my previous posting, this is a horrid, murky footballing world.

Little that appears in print in the form of a quotation can actually be held up as fact.

"This player wants to stay", or "that player wants to leave", or "there has been no interest in such and such a player and it is nonesense to suggest he could be leaving....".

The truth always lies somewhere inbetween.

Only yesterday did Thomas Sorensen reveal the strength of his fall out with Martin O'Neill who had apparently said to him that he had been a poor keeper for five or six seasons. Brilliant stuff!

And there was me reporting- months before Scott Carson came in- that Sorensen would lose his place and that a new keeper would arrive.

Sorensen- who, interestingly, went out of his way to keep David O'Leary in his job- ridiculed such notions in the Danish media. But a few months later he was not laughing so loudly.

He would have left a lot sooner had his contract not been so unbelievably weighty.

Then there is the Frank Lampard scenario.

The papers are full today of a club in crisis because the new manager says he is staying and then the agent says all is not well.

We are talking about a player being offered a five year contract on around £120,000 a week who still cannot find it within himself to accept.

So where is his love of Chelsea? And yet it is the club who appear to be getting it in the neck.

I'll not disagree that Peter Kenyon deserves it. Every top club has a clutch of glorified accountant-type figures earning mega-bucks, but few have Kenyon's arrogance.

Frank's media profile is a million miles above Barry's at the moment because he plays for Chelsea and because Barry came out into the open to try to push through his move.

Because Frank has not had the bottle to do the same he is still a media darling with the London tabloids.

It is all about money for the player and the agent. It stinks.

Villa will move on.

Every day now my contacts around Villa are throwing up names, some new some old. Some I've never heard of.

It promises to be a fascinating few weeks.

I'm catching an early flight to Zurich in the morning to be ready to report from their training camp in St Gallen.

The Mail will also have a photographer at both games against FC Wil 1900 and FC Zurich.

I'm told that nearly every hotel room in Zurich is taken because of a Salsa dance festival.

I will be packing some brighlty coloured shirts.

Well, that's one in.

Welcome Steve Sidwell, a player who bossed Villa's midfield and left Barry and co chasing shadows in a 2-0 defeat at Reading in February 2007.

It's been a wasted year at Chelsea.

If his hunger is still there, and there is no reason to suggest £60,000 a week for a year on the subs bench would have dented that too severely, then this is a shrewd piece of business.

I was in Martin O'Neill's office on Monday for an hour or more.

Some things were thrown up in that conversation with regards to the Barry saga which opened my eyes.

At some point I'd like to be able to put some of these pieces of information into print, but now is not the time.

There was much made of Steve Finnan being 'key' to the deal for Barry in a couple of papers. Not true, but Finnan's name has been put forward by Villa as one potential solution.

But take it from me, Martin O'Neill is not prepared to deal on anything less than Villa's terms.

And Villa fans, who despite the Sidwell signing are still a frustrated lot, should take heart from that.

Suffice to say O'Neill is seething. His anger towards Barry's agent Alex Black is venomous to say the least.

And having spoken to Black recently, I sense that the feeling is rather mutual.

I have already spoken of my belief that Barry is not to blame. There have been better talkers at Villa in my ten years of covering them: Merson, James, Delaney, Southgate, Mellberg spring to mind but in terms of a gentleman only Southgate pushes Barry close.

But the whole saga leaves a sour taste.

Two years ago Barry's head was turned by O'Neill's arrival. And from the manager's point of view, every promise he made to Barry- every single one- has been kept.

Villa have risen from 16th to 11th to 6th, Barry has gone from nowhere under Sven to somewhere under the 'great umbrella one' to first choice under Capello.

Few would disagree that Barry really should have reported back for training and kept his head down.

But, as I have said at length in my previous posting, this is a horrid, murky footballing world.

Little that appears in print in the form of a quotation can actually be held up as fact.

"This player wants to stay", or "that player wants to leave", or "there has been no interest in such and such a player and it is nonesense to suggest he could be leaving....".

The truth always lies somewhere inbetween.

Only yesterday did Thomas Sorensen reveal the strength of his fall out with Martin O'Neill who had apparently said to him that he had been a poor keeper for five or six seasons. Brilliant stuff!

And there was me reporting- months before Scott Carson came in- that Sorensen would lose his place and that a new keeper would arrive.

Sorensen- who, interestingly, went out of his way to keep David O'Leary in his job- ridiculed such notions in the Danish media. But a few months later he was not laughing so loudly.

He would have left a lot sooner had his contract not been so unbelievably weighty.

Then there is the Frank Lampard scenario.

The papers are full today of a club in crisis because the new manager says he is staying and then the agent says all is not well.

We are talking about a player being offered a five year contract on around £120,000 a week who still cannot find it within himself to accept.

So where is his love of Chelsea? And yet it is the club who appear to be getting it in the neck.

I'll not disagree that Peter Kenyon deserves it. Every top club has a clutch of glorified accountant-type figures earning mega-bucks, but few have Kenyon's arrogance.

Frank's media profile is a million miles above Barry's at the moment because he plays for Chelsea and because Barry came out into the open to try to push through his move.

Because Frank has not had the bottle to do the same he is still a media darling with the London tabloids.

It is all about money for the player and the agent. It stinks.

Villa will move on.

Every day now my contacts around Villa are throwing up names, some new some old. Some I've never heard of.

It promises to be a fascinating few weeks.

I'm catching an early flight to Zurich in the morning to be ready to report from their training camp in St Gallen.

The Mail will also have a photographer at both games against FC Wil 1900 and FC Zurich.

I'm told that nearly every hotel room in Zurich is taken because of a Salsa dance festival.

I will be packing some brighlty coloured shirts.

Welcome Steve Sidwell, a player who bossed Villa's midfield and left Barry and co chasing shadows in a 2-0 defeat at Reading in February 2007.

It's been a wasted year at Chelsea.

If his hunger is still there, and there is no reason to suggest £60,000 a week for a year on the subs bench would have dented that too severely, then this is a shrewd piece of business.

I was in Martin O'Neill's office on Monday for an hour or more.

Some things were thrown up in that conversation with regards to the Barry saga which opened my eyes.

At some point I'd like to be able to put some of these pieces of information into print, but now is not the time.

There was much made of Steve Finnan being 'key' to the deal for Barry in a couple of papers. Not true, but Finnan's name has been put forward by Villa as one potential solution.

But take it from me, Martin O'Neill is not prepared to deal on anything less than Villa's terms.

And Villa fans, who despite the Sidwell signing are still a frustrated lot, should take heart from that.

Suffice to say O'Neill is seething. His anger towards Barry's agent Alex Black is venomous to say the least.

And having spoken to Black recently, I sense that the feeling is rather mutual.

I have already spoken of my belief that Barry is not to blame. There have been better talkers at Villa in my ten years of covering them: Merson, James, Delaney, Southgate, Mellberg spring to mind but in terms of a gentleman only Southgate pushes Barry close.

But the whole saga leaves a sour taste.

Two years ago Barry's head was turned by O'Neill's arrival. And from the manager's point of view, every promise he made to Barry- every single one- has been kept.

Villa have risen from 16th to 11th to 6th, Barry has gone from nowhere under Sven to somewhere under the 'great umbrella one' to first choice under Capello.

Few would disagree that Barry really should have reported back for training and kept his head down.

But, as I have said at length in my previous posting, this is a horrid, murky footballing world.

Little that appears in print in the form of a quotation can actually be held up as fact.

"This player wants to stay", or "that player wants to leave", or "there has been no interest in such and such a player and it is nonesense to suggest he could be leaving....".

The truth always lies somewhere inbetween.

Only yesterday did Thomas Sorensen reveal the strength of his fall out with Martin O'Neill who had apparently said to him that he had been a poor keeper for five or six seasons. Brilliant stuff!

And there was me reporting- months before Scott Carson came in- that Sorensen would lose his place and that a new keeper would arrive.

Sorensen- who, interestingly, went out of his way to keep David O'Leary in his job- ridiculed such notions in the Danish media. But a few months later he was not laughing so loudly.

He would have left a lot sooner had his contract not been so unbelievably weighty.

Then there is the Frank Lampard scenario.

The papers are full today of a club in crisis because the new manager says he is staying and then the agent says all is not well.

We are talking about a player being offered a five year contract on around £120,000 a week who still cannot find it within himself to accept.

So where is his love of Chelsea? And yet it is the club who appear to be getting it in the neck.

I'll not disagree that Peter Kenyon deserves it. Every top club has a clutch of glorified accountant-type figures earning mega-bucks, but few have Kenyon's arrogance.

Frank's media profile is a million miles above Barry's at the moment because he plays for Chelsea and because Barry came out into the open to try to push through his move.

Because Frank has not had the bottle to do the same he is still a media darling with the London tabloids.

It is all about money for the player and the agent. It stinks.

Villa will move on.

Every day now my contacts around Villa are throwing up names, some new some old. Some I've never heard of.

It promises to be a fascinating few weeks.

I didn't write anything on John Carew's wish to sign a new deal beyond his two years left at Villa. That story appears to have gone everywhere today but I wrote that story in March after the away game at Arsenal.

What Carew says in public and where he sees his future in private could perhaps be two totally different things- but a press man's job is to get close to the truth by using his own information

Would O'Neill like to negotiate now? Or wait til the last minute like he did with Wilfred Bouma?

Does Carew see his future back in Spain? It's never as simple as: "I want to stay", or a manager saying: "we will hold talks".

Anyway, I'm catching an early flight to Zurich in the morning to be ready to report from their training camp in St Gallen.

The Mail will also have a photographer at both games against FC Wil 1900 and FC Zurich.

I'm told that nearly every hotel room in Zurich is taken because of a Salsa dance festival.

I will be packing some brighlty coloured shirts.