Aston Villa captain or Liverpool bench-warmer?
Looking through the Soccerlens mailbag this week we came across a letter from a Premier League player who is facing a difficult dilemma. As always, Soccerlens can help.
Dear Soccerlens,
I am faced with an impossible decision at a crucial stage in my career. I don’t know what to do for the best and I am told that you are the people to come to for advice. I certainly enjoy reading Graham Fisher’s stuff, I really don’t think he gets paid enough.
I am twenty-seven years old and am a one club man. I skipper my team and everyone here likes me. I have played at centre-half, left back, left midfield and am now one of the best central midfield players in the country. I must be because I’ve got eighteen England caps to prove it. So put that in your pipe in smoke it.
I enjoy playing for my club and this season we have made a serious challenge for fifth place. Next season, I think we could mount a serious challenge for fifth place and in the medium to long term, we could have the potential to become the fifth best team in England.
My manager has made it clear that he wants to keep me at the club saying that he is ‘desperate’ and would ‘do anything to keep me.’ I’m afraid I’m just not that way inclined so he’d better not try it.
I have two years of my contract left to run and have already proved myself to be a loyal club servant. My word is my bond, so I shouldn’t go against it.
I have played over three hundred games for my club and the fans and players love me. They know how important I am to the clubs plans and ambitions to stay exactly where we currently are.
I get paid well at my club, but it is nothing like as much as I would get if I moved to Liverpool or Chelsea, for example.
So there is my dilemma in a nutshell Soccerlens, I just don’t know what to do. I have to make the choice. Do I stay or do I go?
If I stay, I will get paid OK, might get the odd England cap and if we’re incredibly lucky, might finish fifth and get to play against Buducnost Podgorica or HSK Zrinjski Mostar in the UEFA Cup.
If I go, I will get paid a fortune, could become an England regular and will win trophies and probably get to at least the semi-final of the Champions League.
It is such a tough choice. Help me Soccerlens.
GB, Aston, Birmingham, England.
Soccerlens reply – Dear GB,
You certainly have a tough decision to make there and I’m glad I’m not in your shoes. Anonymity in a quite good team or super stardom with potential European Champions? How on Earth can you choose between the two?
I think, if it were me, I would stay where I was and show a selfless loyalty, paying back the club for the eleven years of hard work and salary they have put in to you to get you to where you are now. I wouldn’t run off to where the grass is undoubtedly greener just to further my own career and set myself up for life.
There is more to life than success, happiness, health, wealth, excitement and adoration around the world, you know. Maybe you should also consider the possibility that if you go to the one of the big clubs you might not be very good and might not play much.
You should show the same sort of loyalty to your current club that I show to this website. When others have offered me a blank cheque to write articles for them, I have always said, no. I stay with Soccerlens where I get paid nearly a pound some weeks, because I am a totally loyal sort.
GB, you could learn a lot from me. Whatever you decide to do, you must choose wisely. Money, fame, success and a life of luxury, or stay where you are.
I just don’t know how you will ever decide.
Your problems answered every Monday at Soccerlens.
Graham Fisher writes at Views of a fan.
Graham Fisher may well write as a fan, Liverpool fan by any chance?
What a biased piece of tosh this article really is.
The headline mentions bench warmer, the article itself glosses over this.
Try again Graham, but perhaps from a neutral viewpoint
AL
Al,
Not a Liverpool fan, not sure how you came to that conclusion. The whole piece is meant to be ‘tongue in cheek’
Is this supposed to be an attempt at humour?
If it was it was well off the mark.
IMO – Gareth Barry will stay with Villa for at least 1 more season where he will see if the promise they’ve shown this year actually comes to fruition.
Another piece of ‘top four’ biased tripe.
As far as i’m concerned , Liverpool are not too far away from teams like Aston Villa , Everton & Pompey.
They are the weakest link of the ‘top four’ this season.
If Barry leaves Villa he will loose his captain’s armband & regular first team football , how will that affect his England career???
Agreed – if this is an attempt at humour, you have failed. And failed quite miserably at that. It is ridiculously biased towards the top 4 teams & reads like there’s no point staying anywhere else as no-one will ever achieve anything by doing so. You’re a blinkered idiot Graham & i seriously think you should give up both attempting humour & also writing about football as you clearly know nothing about either.
what a load of drivel.
‘Next season, I think we could mount a serious challenge for fifth place and in the medium to long term, we could have the potential to become the fifth best team in England.’
Is this not what we’ve done this season. If memory serves me right until we had our mini blip just over a month ago we were mounting a serious challenge for top four.
‘Anonymity in a quite good team or super stardom with potential European Champions? How on Earth can you choose between the two?’
Is commanding a regular place in Englands midfield considered anonimity these days?? and super stardom with potential European Champions goes completely agianst the title of your article
‘If I go, I will get paid a fortune, could become an England regular and will win trophies and probably get to at least the semi-final of the Champions League.’
If he stays he’ll STAY an England regular and win the Champions league
‘You should show the same sort of loyalty to your current club that I show to this website. When others have offered me a blank cheque to write articles for them, I have always said, no. I stay with Soccerlens where I get paid nearly a pound some weeks, because I am a totally loyal sort.’
mate you may be loyal but your’e a crap journalist.
Brian (above) said all I want to say.
AL – learn to read:
Maybe you should also consider the possibility that if you go to the one of the big clubs you might not be very good and might not play much
Jonny Boy – man you’re deluded. Regular place in England’s midfield? That’s a laugh…
Pedro – He’s a Watford fan, but apparently you guys jumped on the title and didn’t read the article itself. Pity, because it was good
Personally if i was to take any body from the aston villa team it would Young. The boy is terrific but would cost a shed load. Benitez has recently stated that he dessires to keep alonso and alonso wants to stay so with our 7 man central midfield of
Gerrard
Mascherano
Alonso
Lucas
Plesis
Guthrie
Benyoun
I cant imagine y he needs barry?
I doubt whether he’ll be a bench warmer at the Pool. With this 4-2-3-1 formation thats deployed by Benitez Barry will slot in for the outgoing Alonso alongside Mascherano in midfield.
because he’ll play left midfield?
And Guthrie / Plesis aren’t *there* yet.
How about the possibilities that Rafa will make some changes this summer and that Barry might fill a vacant spot? Rafa will not buy him to sit on the bench!
I think all the Liverpool fans need to calm down a bit. Barry isn’t going anywhere anyway. Read what he actually said on the Villa official site, not the ‘bits’ that the media cherry picked from it. Where’s the news in “Barry is staying at VIlla”?
Villa fans need to wake up and smell the coffee. Both the manager and the mouthpiece (The General) have said they won’t stand in the way of any player who wants to leave.
In real speak that’s “pay up and you can have him, Randy needs to pay the loans off”
He like Agbonlahoor and Young are commodities to be bought and sold determined by how the company stands financially
When it happens it will be covered in all the required spin and rhetoric and most lame Villa fans will applaud in their newly increased priced seats praising the Heavens for the fortune of their great leader and manager
Malc. You’ll find that it is common policy for the new Villa board to say “if you want to leave you can go”. You may recall they said it to Martin O’Neill re. the England job. If the board want the player to stay they will do all they can to make it hard for him to want to leave…it’s all about showing the player how valued he is as a person as much as as a commodity. I believe it’s called valuing the individual and it has much to do with integrity. The only way Martin O’Neill will allow Barry to leave is if it is of benefit to Aston Villa – at the moment it seems he wants Barry to stay. That might change after he has scanned the transfer market – who knows? Clearly Villa don’t need the money when Lerner is worth more than the two cowboys at ‘pool combined.
If I were Liverpool I would be doing all I can to hang on to Gerrard.
“Anonymity in a quite good team or super stardom with potential European Champions?”
Surely it’s sort of the reverse? Anonymity in a European team (he would never be first choice at Liverpool and would struggle at Chelsea) or stardom at a lower level?
If Barry leaves for Chelsea he’ll be competing with Mikel, Essein, Ballack and maybe Lampard for a place, and at Liverpool he’d have to contend with Mascherano, Lucas, Alonso and probably Gerrard. They are interested in him because of his value as a utility player, not because he’s the best holding midfielder or the best all-round player, and certainly not the best attacking midfielder.
If I were him I’d stay. I’d rather do a lot to help a team into Europe than do my bit to keep a team in the title race.
I thought it was a great article. Some of you guys need to realize when an article is serious and when an article is being, as Graham put it, “tongue in cheek.” Some of you are much to serious and get your feelings hurt much to easily.
Great Article Mr. Fisher!
Aye, ’twas a good, humorous read. Gareth ought to stay put. It’s not like the lad’s living in poverty. Do something special with Villains, that ought to mean more than being yet another squad player at Liverpool or one of the London clubs.
1. Mr Barry is clearly up the job at Liverpool. £14M is a sub-prime credit crunch valuation of him. Benitez (the genius) has only worked out how good he is by watching the improvement in Gerrard for England. What next? Will the Liverpool manager realise Wayne Rooney isn’t bad?
2. Barry has as much chance of winning something at Villa as he has at Liverpool.
3. Barry likes it a Villa and he will like it even more with a hefty pay rise. In this regards Liverpool are very useful to him.
4. Villa don’t want to sell a player whereas the whole Club is up for sale at Liverpool. Maybe Mr Lerner should buy Liverpool and use it as a feeder team.
lord Villa, sorry to burst your bubble, but you can’t be serious about point 2. I’m not a Liverpool fan, but i have to say that i can’t really see Aston Villa having as many chances of winning things as Liverpool at the moment. But then again they have won 2 European cups, and Chelsea have won none, but are still in the title race, and Champions league.
I clearly remember it was the Manager and NOT the owner who stated if players want to leave he will not stand in their way. As for seat pricing Villa are near the bottom of the league when it come’s to seat prices, it’s no surprise they are going up by 7% most genuine supporters who go to the game week in week out will realise this is a small rise and in the bigger picture is still great value for money compared to money they wasted under Ellis/O’Leary watching rubbish football week in week out. The club is on the up and I’m afraid theres no room for the miserable, whinging, backstabbibg supporters of yesterday. Villa have moved on to a new level on the pitch and on the terraces. May I suggest those negative supporters go and support Birmingham City, then they will have something to whinge about.
Barry stays……. The General Stays and Randolph Lerner will Invest more of his own money in the club.
He could be an interesting signing for Arsenal though!
They need a leader, and with Flamini probably moving to Juve/ACM they’ll need somebody to complement Fab! Who better than Barry!
Lets make a few things clear
1.Barry is a very good player. No he’s not as good as lampard or gerrard…but well he’s certainly in there with the likes of hargreaves,carrick,jenas and parker in the fringe midfield players. And since the gerrard and lampard combo doesn’t look to work….he might just be the choice to patner gerrard/lampard(i think gerrard is marginally better than lampard but that’s a completely different topic altogether) incase lampard n gerrard continue coming in each others way.
2.aston villa DO NOT have as much chance of winning something as liverpool do.yep i agree…liverpool are prolly the weak link in the top 4….but saying aston villa hav a better chance than liverpool is quite simply absurd.
If i were him…i would never ever move 2 chelsea.Let’s face it..he might be able 2 tip jon obi mikel but lampard ballack essien are always going to be their first choice.99% he would spend most of the season languishing on the bench and it would be an absolute waste. Liverpool he might have a better chance of starting…their would be a straight fight bw him and alonso and that could go either way. Liverpool_fan..barry is central midfield and benayoun and co play on the flanks…u cant include them in one category
But yeah..i agree with jos…hes made a gr8 point…arsenal would be a gr8 place 4 barry incase flamini leaves….it would also provide some much needed leadership and the arrival of an english player would add some much needed backbone 4 the gunners. I say wenger should go for him even if flamini stays…it would be a magnificent buy for them..
pst culd ppl stop usg txt spk on msg boards as it is annoying. thk u Gr8 m8
Well the General is considered Randy Lerner’s mouthpiece as well as his spin doctor and he’s said several times the club will not stand in the way of any player who wants to leave. If you take off the God Specs Welsh you’ll read that seat prices have increased by 7, 10, 12, 15 and 35% in some instances, especially where the owners want to maximise value. Things most certainly have moved on Villa have increased their more gullible element. Especially those who believe Heaven can be found in O’Neill’s arms, via Lerner’s pocket and that any player won’t leave to better themselves. Ask Mellberg
Ahmed Bilal
Both you and i know that was a throw away line particularly when coupled with:
“I wouldn’t run off to where the grass is undoubtedly greener just to further my own career and set myself up for life.”
and
“When others have offered me a blank cheque to write articles for them, I have always said, no. I stay with Soccerlens where I get paid nearly a pound some weeks, because I am a totally loyal sort.”
Why defend the indefensible and make accusations of my lack of reading!
Graham Fisher
This may have been an attempt at humour, but from the reactions you can see it has failed meteorically.
An future attempts should really be aimed at the Top(i.e. richest) 4. Apparently they have a better sense of humour.
I see it unlikely that Liverpool will win anything this year, and probably again for some time at least until the Rafa circus has left town. Would Barry really want to leave for that Soap opera at the moment?
I’d better stop otherwise i’ll be accused of not reading again
“Why defend the indefensible and make accusations of my lack of reading ”
Blind faith I’d guess I can’t understand any other reason for the way some Villa fans give so much credence to a team in O’Neill and Lerner which has yet done little more than over achieve on the field and fool them into believing they can take on the likes of the top 4 with a squad of 11 players.Unless they are certifiable of course and I doubt that.
Whilst what has been done this season is without doubt great, its not permanent especially with O’Neill’s past transfer record.
Ahah good article Graham. I’m not commenting any on the “info” on Gareth Barry (especially the parts people seem to get angry about
) because I have no clue myself, but great article format.
Which others? Names please!! Me I’m not a loyal sort at all, I’ll jump at the opportunity (just kidding Ahmed).
Great and funny article. Don’t see why he shouldn’t stay at Villa. Uefa Cup isn’t the only target as a captain, earnin’ lots of money, of a very interesting side.
With Young Agbonlahor Reo Coker Petrov and especially Maloney he got some great players at his side with lots of future potential and still it would be fun to mash up the likes of Newcastle Spuds (Spurs) Man City and all the other big money clubs which Villa actually are not.
Cheers, Superweichselbaumw
malc you seem bitter and twisted towards all things Aston Villa and their manager, I suspect you support another Birmingham Club. Aston Villa are having a record season for attendances, goals, position in the league is challenging for a European place. How can you slag the management and manager off with such bitter vitirol?
please explain as you are so so very twisted.
WV
Malc
Thanks for the reply which a i agree with to some extent, but how does that relate to my question???
My question asked Ahmed why defend Graham’s comments regarding being loyal etc etc
Why bitter and twisted? There is no reason at all why Barry will stay. In 2 seasons Villa under O’Neill have achieved slightly more than Sven at Man City and he had 3 weeks before the season started. Ticket prices for many have trebled, and for what a refurbished pub, new mozaics, and a ground at capacity. Do you really think that had Villa suffered anything like the injuries most clubs have they would be anywhere near the top 8, most sensible people, O’Neill included, don’t. Its marvellous to be in the hunt for Europe with 2 games to go, but had we a real top manager and a spending owner maybe Europe even with a list of injuries would already be assured.
malc you are so wide of the mark you need to re-evaluate you position and perspective on modern day premiership football. Aston Villa were never in a million years break the top four, that leaves 5th place as the highest they could possibly expect in the second year of the current manager-management. Why you squalk about what could have been acheived, whilst possitivly choosing to ignore what has been acheived is beyond me. I suspect every club has one supporter who will always stand on a soapbox, a lonely soul who will whinge for all he/she is worth.
Malc you are beyond hope… lets just hope Villa never win a trophy or the premiership and you will have to get yourself a higher soap box to squalk from.
Wakey-Wakey malc. Martin O’Neill and the Randy Lerner era are the best things to happen to Aston Villa in many years, as the complete current state of the club would indicate, both on and off the pitch. Reading between the lines of your postings, it is I think clear to one and all, that for whatever reason you have an intense dislike of the manager, and little time for the owner and his board. You’re quite obviously a lost voice in the wilderness, a statement substantiated by the record numbers flooding to Villa Park nowadays. Martin O’Neill has turned the playing fortunes of the club club completely around compared to the shambles he inherited, getting rid of the dead wood that filled the squad, replacing them with better quality footballers, once again a statement backed up by the clubs excellent efforts throughout this current season. I presume that you yourself are a Villa fan, so I find it rather strange that you act as if failure for both O’Neill and Lerner would be more gratifying to yourself than would success for the club be. I find that both strange and disturbing.
Interesting thought Welsh. You are saying Villa will never achieve the aim of Lerner’s 5 year plan ?
Its all about level of ambition and the will and ability to achieve it. Others will break the present monopoly why shouldn’t Villa be amongst them. Someone said they had capacity gates, a billionaire owner, a rampant fan base, what’s missing then.
Supporters like you…
The club has had it fickle brigade over the years, may I suggest your the last man standing?
amusing but not a debatable topic. why would liverpool need barry? we have masch, benayoun and gerrard for that role dont we? and why would barry consider leaving villa? he is to villa what gerrard is to liverpool, or what henry was to arsenal (not talking abt goals, btw). hes not a sell-out. dumb, dumb, dumb.
well malc disagrees, he see’s it as an opportunity to slag the villa off
The main rule at Villa Park these days is “DO NOT criticise O’Neill”
You do at your peril, his omnipotence must prevail.
We’ll see, O’Leary made 6th in his first season, spend 4 mill. Gregory achieved European qualification often, but O’Neill is the best thing for Villa in Years. Its amazing how gullible fans can be
Still bitter and twisted malc. Never mind theres no pleasing some people. Best you move on to support Albion you will be able to cheer them into the Championship next season, sadly theres no space at Villa Park for despots and miseries, but in your twisted head you would consider your self a realist but sorry malc you just a knob bitter and twisted knob.
Every club unfortunately has its ‘Malc’. A moaner and groaner who looks and thrives on the negatives, while overlooking the many positives that reach out and slap you around the face. Malc, you come across as very anti-Martin O’Neill, perhaps you’d care to elaborate on why that should be the case. Are you suggesting that David O’Leary is a better manager than O’Neill? Surely not? That is laughable in the extreme. O’Leary left a mess that has needed a manager of the calibre of O’Neill, to come in and sort out in such short period of time. Malc my man, great things are happening at Villa Park, enjoy the ride!!
I am a personal aston villa fan but i must admit Martin O’niell is rubbish at transfers, i mean, some of the players he sold were fan favourites at villa, for instance gary cahil, aaron hughes and steven davis. And he has to be the worst manager in the premier league at buying players, i mean, wayne routledge,zat knight, emile heskey? whats going on martin. If barry leaves villa, now that laursen has retired villa will be back to square one, mid-table team, barry is pivitol to aston villa football club. If he goes to liverpool the likely-hood is he will be playing left back with alonso and gerrard covering the central midfield positions. And he might not even be able to cement that down, if he leave he could be another robby keane, and considering the 2010 world cup is just round the corner i would love to see him stay at villa park where he is loved. But taking that all into consideration you cannot blame him if he wants to leave. Liverpool, champions league club, strongest finish ever, shows the club are on the up. But i have a sneaky feel he might go to arsenal, where he will be played week-in, week-out with fabregas. I really hope he is careful in his decisions.