Aston Villa took their brinkmanship with Liverpool to a new level when they asked Gareth Barry to risk injury and his prospective move to Anfield by playing for the reserve team away to Walsall last night.

The England midfield player was greeted with boos by Villa supporters and competed for an hour in a 3-2 victory at Banks’s Stadium before being whisked away in a waiting car.

Martin O’Neill, the Villa manager, who has refused to accept Liverpool’s £16 million bid for a player whom he rates at £18 million, put Barry in the team alongside the likes of Nathan Delfouneso and Mustapha Salifou in front of a crowd of 5,081.

The 27-year-old was even supplanted as captain by Marlon Harewood in a team that included none of the starting lineup from Saturday’s 2-2 draw away to Odense BK, of Denmark, in the first leg of the Intertoto Cup third round.

Supporters who thought they had seen Barry play in a Villa shirt for the last time, after he made public his desire to join Liverpool at the end of last season, jeered their former hero when his name was announced and practically every time he touched the ball in the first 45 minutes.

This was Barry’s first match since he captained England for the second half of their 3-0 win away to Trinidad & Tobago on June 1, a game in which he also scored.

Cries of “Judas” and “You’re not fit to wear the shirt” alternated with chants of “Martin O’Neill” as the Villa faithful made their sympathies all too clear in the opening period.

The Villa manager was late arriving at the game, with Kevin MacDonald, the reserve-team manager, directing operations from the dugout and Steve Walford and John Robertson, O’Neill’s right-hand men, among the crowd.

Barry had returned to preseason training only last Wednesday, after serving a fortnight’s suspension for publicly criticising O’Neill in an “unauthorised” interview, and soon picked up a foot injury that ensured he took no part in Saturday’s game in Denmark.

Barry trained on Monday, but it was still a surprise when O’Neill decided that his malcontent would be involved in such a low-key friendly at such a high risk. With the threadbare nature of his squad, the Villa manager could argue that he needs every fit body available as he prepares to take on Odense at Villa Park in the second leg on Saturday with a place in the Uefa Cup qualifiers at stake.

Barry played for exactly an hour as Shaun Maloney twice scored equalising goals before Wayne Routledge claimed the winner five minutes from time. Quite who could claim the moral victory last night was less clear.

O’Neill has sent out a message to Liverpool that, until they are willing to pay his asking price, Barry must be prepared to play and run the inherent risks; conversely, the player could start to pick up his match fitness and thus maintain his value. The most likely scenario, however, is that Barry has played his last game for Villa and O’Neill has simply taken a parting opportunity to demonstrate who is boss.