MARTIN O’NEILL confirmed last night that Arsenal HAVE asked about wantaway Aston Villa skipper Gareth Barry — just as SunSport told you on Saturday.
Villa and Liverpool are still deadlocked over the England star’s future, with O’Neill insisting Kop boss Rafa Benitez must meet their £18million cash demand.
But with Liverpool refusing to budge from their offer of £15m plus £2m in possible add-ons, Gunners manager Arsene Wenger is ready to turn the transfer saga into a tug of war.
We told you on Saturday that Arsenal have already been in contact with Villa over the midfielder — and yesterday Villa chief O’Neill confirmed our exclusive.
He said: “Myself and Steve Walford both know Arsene Wenger’s assistant Pat Rice.
"He phoned Steve to ask how the Liverpool thing had gone and said that they might show an interest.
“At the end of the conversation Arsenal said ‘that’s fine’ and that they’ll let us know. That is exactly what happened.”
Wenger has long been an admirer of Barry, 27, and his midfield resources have been severely weakened by the exits of Mathieu Flamini and Gilberto Silva and impending departure of Alex Hleb.
The Gunners have not yet made an official bid but would be prepared to offer cash plus a fringe player, like Justin Hoyte.
And if striker Emmanuel Adebayor were to leave, Wenger would be able to fund a bigger bid for the Villa man.
O’Neill, meanwhile, has been warned to ‘beware the bite’ of the Great Dane.
O’Neill finds himself in the opposite corner to the legendary Lars Olsen this weekend when Aston Villa take on Odense BK in the third and final round of the Intertoto Cup.
Olsen helped fashion one of the biggest upsets in football history when he captained Denmark to their shock Euro 92 triumph in Sweden.
Now he is now relishing the chance of causing another upset by preventing Villa qualifying for the UEFA Cup over the next two weekends.
Villa visit Odense’s Fionia Park ground for the first leg on Saturday before staging the return at Villa Park seven days later.
Odense boss Olsen said: “Villa may be an English Premier League team but why can’t we take them by surprise?
“We like to be in possession of the ball but this time we’ll be the underdogs.
“We won’t get many chances so we must make the most of the ones that we do get. We’ll see if we can take them by surprise.”
