Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill says Liverpool's £10 million offer for Gareth Barry falls well short of their valuation.
"He thinks a lot of Gareth, although the last thing you want to do is to be running around giving people guarantees.
"Gareth has got two years left of his contract to run and he has not shown to me that he is unhappy at the football club.
"Liverpool's offer would be like me bidding £20m for Lionel Messi. Barcelona would no doubt say: 'So what? That's not saying that Messi would want to come anyway.'
"The disappointing thing for me is that this whole thing is being conducted in the open.
"This has been conducted outside the way that we would normally be conducting business."