Time to talk to GB

By Bill Howell on Apr 10, 08 05:09 PM

Martin O'Neill is convinced that Chelsea are not interested in Gareth Barry.

"They've had two managers in my time here, and the same chief executive and no one has contacted me", he told me on Tuesday.

It was reassuring,of course, but if only transfers were conducted manager to manager like in the good old days.

Nowadays the team boss can be the last to know.

Barry is the driving force of Villa and has been for some years now.

He is Villa through and through and is due a testimonial next summer which I'm sure will be a sell-out, and I'm also convinced, ala Niall Quinn at Sunderland, it will be a charity-driven event.

Okay, now here's the bad news.

He has two years left on a contract where he earns around £42,000 a week.

That effectively means that Villa have to be talking to his agents this summer to get him around the table to signing an extension.

Clubs cannot allow their star assets to enter into the final 12 months. So can Villa wait another season before getting him to sign? Yes, but that's always a dangerous game. Ask Spurs and Jermaine Defoe.

Olof Mellberg is worth £4million of anyone's money on the open market - and here he is walking away for nothing.

Players in the top flight will tell you that the talking starts with two years left. If the talking doesn't start then, as one midfielder at Villa found out last summer, then you know you're not wanted.

Average Premier League players are raking it in at some clubs. I know that Barry's wage is almost shameful in an age when nurses or firemen are picking up £20,000 a year.

But I was told by a source last week of a striker, not even in the England set-up, who was earning £92,000 a week at a London club.

Barry's agents... everybody's agents will know this.

My worry is that Barry's stock is at its highest because of his inclusion in Fabio Capello's side.

Two years ago it was Portsmouth. And I know his boyhood team, Tottenham, wanted him. But Villa turned down around £4million and then Martin O'Neill came in and made him captain.

Now even forgetting Frank Lampard and the possibility of his move abroad, what about the Liverpool's of this world? Surely they would fancy Barry? And Rafa Benitez is never more at home than when he is signing players.

Barry is still only 27 and it's my belief that should Villa not get into Europe this season they might find it as hard as ever before to keep him at the club.