Anfield boss Rafael Benitez responded last week by saying that he had discussed the idea of a transfer with O'Neill "20 days ago."

"I wouldn't want to be saying how confident we are of keeping Barry. We will see," added O'Neill.

"All I know is he has never expressed one iota of unhappiness in my time at Villa Park. He might not have stayed that long had he been really unhappy before.

"Gareth is a demi-god at Villa Park. He has that reputation and he's playing for England and he hasn't had to move to another club to do that.

"He has been particularly brilliant for us. We want to improve the team and our best chance of doing that is to keep our best players and add some quality."