O'Neill said he and the club's American owner, Randy Lerner, will make a last attempt to keep Barry – a £10m target for Liverpool – at the club. But Benitez said: "If your captain wants to leave, it's a problem, but that's football."

The Spaniard's latest comments are bound to anger O'Neill, who was furious last week at the manner of Liverpool's approach for the England midfielder. The Villa manager criticised Benitez when he was told the Spaniard had claimed to have had "prolonged discussions" with him about Barry, even though Benitez had never been quoted as saying that.

Liverpool's manager has defended his actions, saying: "I think the right approach when you want to sign a player is to talk to the manager. I was talking to Martin O'Neill. I said we would like to sign Gareth Barry and asked what the situation was.

"He just said he needed to talk to the owner and I said OK. He will not have any problems with his supporters because he never said to me he wanted to sell Barry. We were also talking about [the Liverpool goalkeeper] Scott Carson because they have the option to sign him.

"We were just talking about football so why was he so angry? I do not know.

"I have been very clear. The player had said before that he wanted to play Champions League football. We knew that and so tried to sign a good player. It is that simple."

O'Neill and Lerner will make one last effort to keep hold of Barry in the next 48 hours. O'Neill said: "I wouldn't want to be saying how confident we are [of keeping Barry]. It's a different era we live in. We will see.

"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. We are going to be sitting down very shortly and discussing Gareth's future. We won't let this lie.

"I am going to see the chairman and, with a bit of luck, the two of us together might persuade him to stay. I say persuade him – but he still has two years left on his contract. Gareth is a demigod here. He has that reputation and he is playing for England and he has not had to move to another club to do that."