The Development of Ross Barkley

Ross Barkley and his Everton teammates have had a somewhat underwhelming season. Given last year’s fifth place finish and seeming progression under first year Manager/Media Darling Roberto Martinez, this year’s team was expected to once again have an outside shot at finishing in the Champions League places, while also being an outside shot to go all the way in the Europa League. By those lofty (and perhaps in retrospect unreasonable goals) Everton have underachieved significantly, as they splutter toward a mid table finish while also failing to make any significant progress in cup competitions. However, despite being 25 points worse off than they were at this stage last season, this hasn’t been an entirely wasted year for this Everton side. First, while last year’s team was mainly left over from David Moyes’s time at the club, many of the players currently in and around the side have come through under Martinez; with the team itself undergoing more changes this year than it has over the past five or six. One of those major changes and probably the one that was the most anticipated at the start of the season was the increased involvement of Barkley. Still only 21, Barkley has been talked about by both football insiders and Football Manager addicts alike since he was 16, with only a leg break in his late teens hindering what has otherwise been a fairly smooth rise through the ranks. This culminated over the second half of last season, in which he went from occasional sub and rotation player to a borderline star, with his eye-catching midfield bursts and taste for the spectacular drawing comparison to everyone from Michael Ballack to fellow Everton alum Wayne Rooney.

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It is clear therefore, that Barkley is immensely talented. Everyone with a laptop and four minutes to spare can see him flying past Nemanja Matic one moment, then running from inside his own half before firing in against Newcastle in the next amongst an array of YouTube highlights. Not only that, it does translate to the game, with his athleticism mixed with impressive close control when on the run making him hard to stop, and in fact in some ways reminiscent of Yaya Toure, when he gets going. However, like Toure, Barkley has endured a somewhat patchy and inconsistent season; his return has seen him fail to hit the heights he managed last season, with those flashes of brilliance too intermittent amongst a spell of anonymous or wasteful play. While he gets named alongside Raheem Sterling as part of the future of English football, despite being just only a year older than his Liverpool counterpart, he is not as consistent or developed, giving the ball away too cheaply all too often. For a player in the number 10 role he usually operates in, this is a particularly troubling trait, as not only is he the attacking fulcrum of the side, but giving the ball away in those positions can be especially costly when teams counter-attack after the turnover of possession. What’s more worrying perhaps is the way Barkley gives the ball away at times, the ball just bouncing off his shins where his first touch simply abandons him, or turning into multiple defenders when a simple square pass is on. These kinds of mental errors may be forgivable for wingers or strikers, but in his position they are hard to deal with, even with his obvious positives.

Jun 19, 2014; Sao Paulo, BRAZIL; England midfielder Ross Barkley (21) against Uruguay during the 2014 World Cup at Arena Corinthians. Uruguay defeated England 2-1. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

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It is this fact that has perhaps driven Barkley to become an overrated talent in my mind: his positives are so clear, so in your face, that they are impossible to ignore. Watch him for a few minutes in a game (or indeed one of the aforementioned YouTube clips) and you can’t help but come away impressed, however, watch him over the course of 90 minutes and those technical and mental flaws rear their ugly heads. Of course he is still at the point in his career where many of these errors can be ironed out of his game and he is paired with a good manager to help him do that. Equally though, there is a sense that some of those errors will linger in his game, particularly some of the technical ones. If he doesn’t develop any further, that ability to run past people at pace while maintaining control of the ball will ensure that he still has a good career, that talent being one that is innate and therefore hard to find, but given that immense natural talent it would be a shame if he never becomes much more.

Aug 6, 2013; Miami Gardens, FL, USA; Everton midfielder Ross Barkley (20) is pressured by Valencia defender Michel Herrero (16) defends during the second half at Sun Life Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

With talk of a summer move already beginning to build, the next 18 months will be crucial for the precocious Liverpudlian, with his club future, as well as his progression on the pitch coming into sharper focus.

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