Martin O'Neill today insisted only one factor was delaying Gareth Barry's Villa Park departure - Liverpool's failure to meet the asking price.

And the Villa boss confirmed he reluctantly accepted Barry's imminent exit once the midfielder made his desire to move to Anfield clear early last month.

Speaking to the News of the World last weekend Barry complained about a lack of communication from Villa Park.

But, speaking exclusively to AVTV Online, O'Neill told www.avfc.co.uk: "We're really disappointed that he's not going to be with us, he's made his mind up to go to Liverpool.

"You can talk and you can talk and talk but the bottom-line was that when he came back from the England game in Trinidad and Tobago he told me he wanted to leave.

"When somebody says they want to leave a football club there's not much else you can do about it. We'd had a meeting a few weeks before that, Randy, myself, Gareth and his agent and he said that Champions League football was what he wanted to do.

"So this idea that we have not done anything in our power to keep him, I'm afraid I totally and utterly disagree. Why on earth would we not want to keep our very top player at the football club when we're trying to improve?

"I think we have made steady improvement - we've gone from 16th to 11th to sixth in the league. This season we're going to try to push on from there. So the one thing you want to do is keep your best players."

The Villa boss added: "But Gareth has made his position clear and after that it's straightforward. We've put a valuation on him and Liverpool value him differently at the moment. That's what the stalemate is, it's nothing else.

"Gareth has pointed out he wants to go and if Liverpool come up and meet our valuation, he will go. That has been the case since the beginning of June when Gareth said he definitely wanted to go to Liverpool.

"We put a valuation on him and we have based this valuation on a number of straightforward issues - not least that he's actually a top quality player."

See AVTV Online for much more from Villa's return for pre-season training.