Barry's best bet looks far from clear; THE FINAL WORLD.

Byline: MAT KENDRICK

GAZE into our claret and blue crystal ball.

It's summer 2018 and, all of a sudden, Villa's star player Nathan Delfouneso's reputation has rocketed to such a level that he is attracting interest from England's top clubs.

After taking the Midlands scene by storm as a teenager 10 years ago, the rest of the country has finally cottoned on to the fact that he is one of the Premier League's very best players.

The 27-year-old home-grown hero has a choice between staying or going and for advice Nathan turns to two of his Villa Park predecessors, Gareth Barry and Dwight Yorke.

Barry faced the same dilemma 10 years ago but rejected Liverpool and Chelsea to remain loyal to Villa, while Yorke jumped ship to join Manchester United without a moment's hesitation a decade earlier.

Nathan meets up with Dwight and the retired Trinidad and Tobago striker flashes him a trademark smile and tells him to look on his mantelpiece. There's a Champions League medal, three Premier League medals and an FA Cup medal, plus the two League Cup medals he won with Villa.

Suitably impressed, Nathan returns to Bodymoor Heath for a quiet word with Barry.

Now 37, the veteran Villa captain has smashed Charlie Aitken's club appearance record of 656 games and has a nice shiny plaque with his name on to prove it.

Cloudy

But, just as he starts to discuss the rest of his personal trophy cabinet, the crystal ball goes all cloudy.

Does he go on to remind his young team-mate about their Martin O'Neill treble-winning year... or Villa's three successive Premier League triumphs... or the club's second European Cup win?

Or is the stalwart bitter that he foolishly failed to take advantage of his most marketable moment back in 2008 in the hope that promises about Villa being a big club would finally be kept? The reality would probably be somewhere in between.

But Barry is now entering his prime and has a chance to turn a very good career into a great one with the tangible rewards of trophies and medals.

Whether that chance is greater as the focal point of O'Neill's emerging Villa or as a potential bit-part player with one of the established big-boys is up to Barry.

The only certainty is that, over the coming months, Gareth Barry's decisionmaking needs to be as impeccable off the pitch as it is on it.

CAPTION(S):

BIG CHOICE: Gareth Barry