So the story has been floating around this morning that Gareth Barry is “in talks” with Citeh today.  OK, maybe he is, maybe he isn’t.

But then Aston Villa issue one of their “Webflashes” which simply says:-

Aston Villa can confirm today that Gareth Barry is in talks with Manchester City.

Mmmmm.  Bit strange that.  Aston Villa are not usually so keen to confirm something of this nature as the story is still breaking.  Not really too sure what to make of that.

The irony of this shouldn’t really need pointing out, but it’s obviously very interesting to see Gareth Barry apparently willing to listen to an offer from a club no more able to satisfy his desire for Champions League football than his current employer.  But it’s equally important to remember that’s all that’s happening at this stage.  Generally, the procedure is for an interested club to make a bid and if Aston Villa accept that bid then they’ll give permission for the player to go talk about contract terms.  The player doesn’t have to go if he doesn’t want to.  Apparently Gareth Barry would like to see what’s on the table.  I probably would too, just out of curiosity.  Before the current owners came in, not so much.

But coming back to Villa’s enthusiasm to confirm this story…  are we to read into this that proceedings are at an advanced stage??  I’m struggling to think of another reason to break from usual protocol, but there could be an innocent explanation.

If we are at an advanced stage then things are moving quickly if you take Randy Lerner at his word when he recently said that he was confident of Barry remaining at Villa.  Call me naive, but I somehow can’t see that the notoriously media-shy owner was gaming the system with his words.  Well, not in the sense of a firm offer being in hand, but I could see him hoping to nudge some interested parties into some action.  But I’m going to assume that there wasn’t a bid from Citeh at the time of his interviews  barely a week ago.  Perhaps he walked back into his office, after concluding the interviews, was handed a fax from Citeh offering £12million and thought to himself “GET IN!!!!”, I don’t know.

The bottom line at this stage is that an offer decent enough for Villa to accept it has evidently been made by Manchester City and the player is interested enough to hear what they have to say.  Since it’s out in the open it appears to be more likely than a lot of deals that it will proceed.  If this is the case, then I think most Villans will regard it as good business and will be happy to see Barry go.  I’d include myself in that camp and will also be grateful not to repeat last summer’s transfer saga.