It is the game that is ill- not O'Neill or Barry

Gareth Barry has had his character assassinated.

Journalists who know little about the club, or the player, are too quick to want headlines and have their say.

Cheap talk. Easy to criticise a player from 'little-old' Aston Villa stuck a hundred miles up the motorway, a club which you will visit once or twice a season.

Not so easy to criticise Frank Lampard at Chelsea for trying to engineer a big money move away from Chelsea and threatening to buy up his contract using the Webster ruling- a ruling which could quite easily blow apart the transfer system and take away any ounce of power the clubs clung onto following Bosman and into the hands of the top players.

Barry, in my opinion- like Dennis Mortimer before me and like any player, anywhere, will tell you in private- has, in truth, done very little wrong in the context of the modern game.

His quotes were no stronger than any player most summers who asks to leave a football club.
To do so in print constitutes the breaking of a contract and in that sense is 'wrong', as we live in a sport where there is little freedom for the press, although I would not like to take my chances by publicly voicing any displeasure towards Trinity Mirror .

The real 'wrong' is the system. And it is a 'huge' wrong that allows the ridiculous saga of a club captain being allowed to take 'gardnening leave' ever to have taken place.

Players and managers are not allowed to talk to players under contract and yet do so willy nilly with agents walking through training ground doors as often as the postman.

There will not be a chief scout in the Premier league who does not know the small print in the contract of a potential target.

The whole Barry issue is messy and ugly.

Barry's comments, although not wrong, as I say, in the context of the modern game, nevertheless, left Martin O'Neill with absolutely no alternative but to take disciplinary action and keep Barry away from the rest of the players.

It is firm management and it is the type of management that has taken O'Neill to the top of the game.

Good 'man manager' he may be. But step out of line and you will find it very difficult to get back in.

The Villa manager is absolutely quite within his rights to keep turning down bids from Liverpool if they do not meet his valuation.

If £20 million, or £18 million, is the fee. Then there is no room for manouvre. Pay up or shut up, as they say.

Hopefully, just hopefully, Juventus can hasten the switch this week with their move for Xabi Alonso whilst Portsmouth can do their bit with a move for Peter Crouch.

Liverpool must have been chucking away to themselves all summer. The PR battle has consistently been won with Rafa Benitez coming out with one small line that "O'Neill has a problem because his captain wants to leave" which was quickly followed by Steven Gerrard's rather too public wish of a club union with his England team-mate.

They haven't needed to say any more.

Villa, it appears, have been playing a re-active media game rather than being pro-active just occasionally.

It is true that if Barry wanted to leave Villa with the supporters' backing then he simply had to keep quiet, report back for training and try to allow market forces to dictate.

The last thing any fan wants to read is that their player wants to play for somebody else.

Ask Albion fans what they think of Curtis Davies or Zoltan Gera.

Central to the issue is Barry and his agent's apparent belief that the possibility of a move was verbally agreed should a Champions League club come forth.

Only two people know whether that was indeed the case.

And you know what would solve part of football's problem? The abolishment of the Bosman rule and it's kid brother Webster.

We live in an ugly era where money rules. Players and agents dictate. It is time to seek some reversal.

Barry at home whilst his team-mates train hard for a new season is simply not right.

But neither was Henri Camara refusing to return for pre-season at Wolves following relegation- a far, far more severe crime than Barry's mutterings.

Remember Jason Koumas doing exactly the same at Albion after a fall-out with Bryan Robson? Again a crime worthy of a far harsher penalty.

Haven't two Birmingham City players just forgotten to report back for training?

The thing is it is almost second nature now for a player to simply do as he wants.

Ten years ago the whole of the footballing world seemed to be in revulsion against the petulance and downright arrogance of Italian play-maker Paolo Di Canio who refused to return from his native country following compassionate leave granted by his club Sheffield Wednesday.

The Italian had been allowed to return home to be with his wife and new born baby daughter.

Di Canio had just completed his 11 match ban served by the FA pushing over referee Paul Alcock during a Premiership match against Arsenal in September '98.

His agent Moreno Roggi then blamed stress and depression- but it was effectively a player strike and Di Canio got his move to West Ham, sure enough.

A year later Dutch striker Pierre van Hooijdonk missed the first 11 games of the 1999 season after refusing to return to the City Ground from his homeland, maintaining Forest had reneged on an agreement to let him leave the club.

The forward eventually resumed his Forest career but was sold to Vitesse at the end of the campaign for £3.5m - with Forest offering Van Hooijdonk a significant sum of money to settle his contract.

I remember George Boateng's agent threatening strike action against Villa if he failed to secure a move to Middlesbrough.

Such actions were reviled and yet where was the revulsion when Curtis Davies withdrew his work at Albion last summer?

There was hardly a criticism anywhere in the national press.

The story at the time was more as to which club would sign him and at what price.

Davies has more than survived, indeed he has flourished. And a thouroughly likeable bloke he is too as was the case when we met at Villa Park earlier this week ahead of his permanent switch.

Barry has, like Davies, asked for a transfer and has put pressure on his club to facilitate such a move.

Davies criticised his chairman. Barry his manager. Both went against the terms of their contracts.

Davies was booed in the first half of a summer friendly by a minority of fans who were then drowned out by the cheering fans in the second half, although he conveniently forgets this now.

He got his wish of a move whilst Barry has been hung, drawn and quartered by the supporters who have loved him for ten years.

In much the same way that they turned on Gareth Southgate who wanted to leave siting 'ambition' but actually, much more accurately, because he had fallen out with the manager of the time, John Gregory, for blocking a move to Chelsea.

And in much the same way that the fans turned on Dwight Yorke for wanting to go to Manchester United, though the supporters' response in that case was no doubt inflamed by Gregory's comments about a "gun".
Fans will always do the same. Do you expect Cristiano Ronaldo to get a hearty cheer at Old Trafford if he leaves for Madrid this summer? Forget it!

Fans will always boo a former player. Cyrille Regis, now a 'father' figure to everything Albion, got it big style when he went back with Coventry City. "Traitor" and "went for the money" etc came his way. He was subsequently sent off for trading blows with Martyn Bennett.

Regis then, like Barry now, deserved better because of his long service.

Villa will move on. The Sidwell's of this world will arrive and will take the club forward. I'm sure of that.

The supporters feel badly betrayed at the moment, and quite possibly only the arrival of someone of the calibre of David Bentley will pacify them right now.

There is growing frustration at the lack of transfer activity down at Villa Park in view of the InterToto campaign being just a fortnight away.

But to be fair to O'Neill, the 'tin hat' mentality he managed to fire last season with his 'small squad' mantra worked a treat with the players who pushed themselves to the limit.

It might be a little worrying if the Premier League ccampaign were to open with Stuart Taylor as the only keeper, with Craig Gardner as the only right-back, with no centre-half cover and with no Barry.

But Odense BK should still be beaten by the likes of Ashley Young, John Carew, Gabby Agbonlahor, Nigel Reo-Coker, Stiliyan Petrov, Martin Laursen and a returning Wilfred Bouma- who I understand could be back in training aas early as Monday.

Barry's loss could easily turn out to be Petrov's gain. Lord knows that despite a fine end to the season the Bulgarian needs to deliver and might just flourish alongside new skipper Reo-Coker and Sidwell.

Who knows- maybe the team will really react to Barry's departure and kick-on under Reo C?

Of course, in the short term, supporters will hold fears that the whole Barry saga has revealed a real lack of ambition by the club and they will fear that it will do nothing to attract the likes of Bentley to Villa Park.

But those worries - as seen in below expectation season ticket salesat this precise time- should be left with Martin O'Neill.

And a little faith in him by the supporters would go a long way.