Birmingham City's Tomoki Iwata (left) and Stockport County's Louie Barry battle for the ball
Taking stock... Tomoki Iwata (left) and Louie Barry battle for the ball (Image: PA)
Dave Challinor insists he is not worried at the prospect of losing Louie Barry in the January transfer window. The Aston Villa youngster is currently enjoying another fruitful loan spell at Stockport County having played a big part in helping the Hatters win promotion to League One last season.
So far he has scored 14 goals in 19 games, although he was unable to find the net in 90 minutes of Wednesday night’s 2-0 loss to Birmingham City.
Speaking after the game at St Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park, the Stockport boss was asked about recent speculation linking the 21-year-old with a return to Villa and a potential reallocation to a Championship club, with Middlesbrough and Sheffield Wednesday said to be interested.
He insisted he wasn’t worried, explaining: “It's not a thing I can’t effect, so if I'm having sleepless nights over something that I can't do anything about then I'm in trouble.
“There's more things that I've got to concern myself that I can control, so whatever will be, will be.
“If Louie ends up staying with us brilliant. If not, then we have to come up with some solutions to replace the goals that we’ll miss, but we're pretty comfortable with where we sit.”
Barry had a couple of moments in the first half, with his diagonal setting up Will Collar for a drive that hit the underside of the Birmingham crossbar and then forced the save of the game out of home ‘keeper Ryan Allsop just before half-time.
Challinor admitted that Blues handled him well, adding: “He's had moments. Birmingham are very aggressive how they go about it. I think once they've got themselves in front then they can afford to sort of double up and not take any risks.
“There were times when he was exposed down that left-hand side a couple of times and he's done really well. Listen, I think as with all those situations, it's a compliment to Louie that he's seen as a threat and hopefully that continues to be the case.”
What’s the next step for Louie Barry? Have your say here