Aston Villa midfielder Gareth Barry admits a summer full of speculation linking him with Liverpool did get him down.

"The summer was different,'' he recalled to the Birmingham Mail. "If I thought a year ago I would be fined two weeks' wages and not be allowed to train at Bodymoor I would have laughed in your face.

"The events over the summer are something that I learnt a lot from.

"If it happens again and you do go down that road you would like to think things would happen differently."

Barry found photographers taking snaps of him through long lenses at his home, and frequently found himself not just on the back pages but often on the front.

"It's not really the way I prefer to live my life," he says.

About his outburst against Martin O'Neill, when he called into question the merits of the manager's trip to the World Cup Finals, he says: "The main thing is I learnt from it.

"It's not something I enjoyed so I wouldn't go down that road again.

"I didn't overly enjoy the summer and the way it dragged on. But that's all in the past now."