Aston Villa set to show off Steve Sidwell

Jul 8 2008

MARTIN O’Neill should unveil Chelsea midfielder Steve Sidwell within the next 24 hours and has opened negotiations with Liverpool to resolve the impasse over Gareth Barry which could result in Steve Finnan coming to Villa Park.

O’Neill’s interest in taking Finnan is not crucial to the Barry deal as O’Neill only rates the full-back at £1million, a small fraction of the Barry asking-price, because Finnan has only one year remaining on his contract.

Villa rejected a straight £15million bid for Barry last week and it is understood their asking price remains £18million – or £17million plus Finnan.

Any agreement will also hinge on Liverpool paying up over two years with the traditional Premier League structure of half the money down immediately and the rest in 12 months.

O’Neill says the ball is firmly in Liverpool’s court.

“Liverpool have come back to us and we have responded to their proposal with a letter,’’ he said.

“We’re still waiting to hear back from Liverpool after putting that proposal to them.

“It’s really up to Liverpool. I really don’t know how it’s going to work out at the moment.

“I’m sure there will be some sort of resolution at some stage or another.”

Sidwell is in line to fly out to Switzerland to join up with the rest of his new team-mates, who jetted out to Zurich today ahead of Thursday’s friendly with FC Wil, but he is unlikely to make his debut until Saturday’s clash with Zurich.