If Gareth Barry thought he received some rough treatment during a pre-season friendly at Walsall last summer, when he made his first appearance for Aston Villa after publicly criticising Martin O'Neill and expressing his desire to join Liverpool, he has seen nothing yet. The level of vitriol that accompanied the news that he had signed for Manchester City yesterday suggests Birmingham City fans will be more welcome at Villa Park next season than the England international.
In the eyes of many Villa supporters Barry has committed a crime by reneging on his declaration that Champions League football was driving his desire to leave the Midlands. Fans who voiced their discontent 12 months ago would probably have forgiven him for moving to Liverpool this year after having another stab at taking Villa into the top four, but joining a club that finished 10th in the league and is synonymous with oil and money rather than trophies and Europe does not sit comfortably at all, even after 12 years service.
With a six-figure weekly wage on offer, Barry has been called everything from a "money-grabber" to a "mercenary" and plenty of things in between, yet scratch beneath the surface and the more open-minded Villa supporter might dare to consider that the decision the midfielder has made this week was not solely about money. Manchester City, whether Villa fans like it or not, are far better equipped to challenge for major honours over the next few years than the club Barry has left behind.
O'Neill, with justification, has suggested that finishing sixth again next season will represent progress because of other emerging clubs but Manchester City's owners have the resources to pursue much grander ambitions. Whether they achieve them or not remains to be seen but if they come up short it will not be because of a lack of finance. Yet drop down the M6 to Villa Park and the chairman Randy Lerner, who is not in the same financial league as Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City, has suggested there will be "modest spending" this summer after three years of investment.
Indeed Barry could have been forgiven for believing that Villa, after back-to-back sixth-placed finishes, have hit a glass ceiling that City are capable of crashing through. And, against that backdrop, why would he not want to spend what promises to be the best years of his career at a club that has the wherewithal to compete with Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal? Some will argue that Barry should have only left Villa to join one of the latter but that misses the point that it was City alone who met the £12m asking price.
Liverpool had their opportunity last summer, when Rafael Benítez was unable to get his hands on the £18m required to sign Barry, but in the same breathe managed to get hold of £20m to bring in Robbie Keane. O'Neill admitted last month that he would have been "hurt" by that episode if he was in Barry's position. Both parties also indicated that there was no desire for a repeat of the protracted nature of last summer's saga, something that will have counted against Liverpool with so much again depending on Xabi Alonso's future.
O'Neill acknowledged after their public falling out that plenty of other players would have sulked and proved to be a disruptive influence in the wake of not getting the transfer they wanted but Barry, to his credit, set off on a different path. Having been suspended from pre-season training in July and stripped of the captaincy following his ill-advised decision to go public with his grievances, he was back in the Villa line-up at the start of the season and had the captain's armband on again come Arsenal's visit on Boxing Day.
Indeed the fact that O'Neill was willing to effectively write off £12m and allow Barry to stay on for another season and then leave for nothing next summer when his contract would have expired is an indication of just how highly he valued his contribution. With Martin Laursen also severing his ties with the Midlands club after being forced into retirement, there are two huge holes for the Villa manager to fill before he even begins to address the need to strengthen the depth of last season's squad.
Barry's presence will be sorely missed. He might not have weighed in with many goals for a player operating with a fair amount of freedom in the centre of the field but it was his composure in possession and the ability to pick and execute a pass with wonderful precision that provided the springboard for many of Villa's best attacking moves over the last couple of seasons. Neither Nigel Reo-Coker nor Steve Sidwell, who might hope for more opportunities in the wake of Barry's departure, possesses the same attributes.
This morning Barry admitted that Villa "bent over backwards" to keep him and it is understood he was offered an £80,000-a week-contract to stay. While there is no doubt that Manchester City have improved those terms and that Barry's head will have been turned by the figures on the table, Mark Hughes, because of the grotesque sums at his disposal, can also offer something beyond Villa's reach: a realistic chance of breaking into the top four. Villa fans, however, are unlikely to see it that way.
