Gareth Barry will be staying at Aston Villa if Martin O'Neill has anything to do with it. The midfielder has been linked with a move to Liverpool, whilst Rafa Benitez has made a £10 million offer for the player. But O'Neill has revealed he is hopeful the player will stay.

A statement on www.avfc.co.uk read: "We've spoken to Gareth and our situation remains the same - that everyone at Aston Villa Football Club wishes very strongly that Gareth will stay.

"He still has two years of his contract to run and Liverpool have put in an offer that, well, it's almost debatable whether it is an offer.

"Things are very much up in the air and the main aim for the chairman and myself is to try and keep him at the football club. That's what we're trying to do.

"You can make people see out their contracts but in essence we would want a pretty amicable solution to all of this and we're still hopeful that things can be resolved in favour of Aston Villa."