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 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.