As much as I agree that the whole saga is twisted, I cannot concur with your sentiment that this has somehow left the club with an embarrassing situation, nor dented our future. Martin O'Neill and Randy Lerner have acted in the best interests of our club throughout this situation. As a player under contract Gareth Barry takes the vast majority of the blame in all of this. When Liverpool first showed an interest he had a chance to say/do the right thing. He didn't. Instead, he went to his unethical, greedy agent and sought his advice. Mr. Black, since that day has handed out "advice" and "guidance" to Barry that breaks all possible ethical guidelines and moral approaches. Barry could have walked away from Black at any time he wanted. Instead, he chose to follow that route. He has been slapped in the face by Benitez and Liverpool for four months - the failure to sell Alonso, the purchase of Robbie Keane, the offers of reserve players in exchange, the comments about how much he liked the combination of Keane, Torres, Gerard and Alonso in the friendly game, and most of all, the continued under-valuation of a player who is currently entering the peak of his career and is a national team regular playing in front of Lampard, Hargreaves, Carrick - all of whom have recently been valued at similar or higher prices. GARETH BARRY HAS BETRAYED HIS TEAMMATES, THIS CLUB AND HIS MANAGER. He has put self before team and failed to recognize the one reason why his career has elevated over the past two years - Martin O'Neill.