Ross Barkley Must Make Progress or His Career Won't Reach Expected Heights

Blood and thunder, guts and gore, Monday's Merseyside derby should have been a game for Ross Barkley. 

When the young midfielder was forged from Scouse metal—the same Scouse metal that was moulded into Wayne Rooney—this was the kind of environment in which he was designed to thrive. This, however, was not a match for Barkley. In fact, it’s unknown what kind of match is a match for Barkley at all.

Considered one of the brightest English talents of his generation, Barkley’s development has stalled over the past year or so. That much was underlined by his performance against Liverpool, when for all his charging about, all that he gave the illusion of energy and drive, he failed to make even the slightest impression. Apart from on Jordan Henderson's ankle.

OLI SCARFF/Getty Images

At 23 years old, Barkley is still young; he still has time to fulfil the promise he demonstrated as a teenager. But most concerning is that the midfielder is still the same player he was when he first burst into the Everton starting lineup. There has been little in the way of progress, whether that be technical progress or mental, psychological progress. His career has stagnated before we have even had a chance to judge what kind of player he is. 

And that’s perhaps the most frustrating thing about Barkley. His struggle is an existential one. Nobody, himself included, is quite sure what type of player he is. Is he a box-to-box operator in the mould of someone like Steven Gerrard? Is he more of a No. 10, like Wayne Rooney, the player he is compared to most often? Will his future be as a more conservative deep-lying midfielder? Nobody knows.

Everton manager Ronald Koeman is one of those seemingly tearing his hair out at the lack of development Barkley has undergone over the past few years, even going as far as dropping the midfielder and publicly calling on him to buck up his ideas.

"We know he is one of the players who needs to bring more productivity and that is the talk we had about his situation," Koeman said when asked about the nature of the discussions he has had with Barkley this season, per Dev Trehan of Sky Sports. "Sometimes it can be a tactical reason, sometimes I expect more from Ross Barkley but I expect more from other players offensively.

"He needs to accept it. He needs to show it on the training pitch and that is the best way to give the best answer as to why he doesn't play. He is always trying to do his best but it is not always about the mentality of the player, it is about tactics, his movement, his productivity."

Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

Barkley’s tale is a common one for English football. The case could be made that despite making the move to Manchester City for a fee that was reportedly close to £50 million in the summer, per BBC Sport—thus becoming the second-most expensive defender of all time—John Stones finds himself in a similar position to his former Everton team-mate. Both players have the fundamental skills and tools to one day become among the best in Europe, but there are a lot of dots still to be joined.

Once tipped for the top of the sport, now there is a common realisation across English football that Barkley might not be the truly world-class talent they thought he would be. That is perhaps illustrated best by how the midfielder is now being linked with clubs like Tottenham Hotspur, per Matt Law of the Telegraph, rather than Real Madrid as was the case not so long ago, per Marca (h/t FourFourTwo).

Monday night’s game against Liverpool was an opportunity to reiterate his status as one of the brightest young prospects in the Premier League right now, but he allowed the chance to pass him by. He certainly allowed the opposition to pass him by, with Jurgen Klopp’s side finding it easy to move the ball around the 23-year-old, essentially eliminating him from the contest.

There was also the shocking tackle put in on Henderson, for which Barkley should have seen a straight red card. The Liverpool midfielder, and Barkley’s international team-mate, was fortunate not to suffer a broken leg. Had his studs been planted a little firmer in the turf, the Reds captain would have surely left Goodison Park in a plaster cast.

It was just another thing to illustrate how Barkley still has a lot of maturing to do. Both in the technical sense and the mental sense, he is a long way from where English football expected and predicted he would be by now.

At this stage Barkley should be well on the way to individual fulfilment. Instead, he has yet to even take his first step on that path.

Dave Thompson/Associated Press

Far too frequently Barkley makes the wrong decision when it matters most. He did it even in Everton’s comeback win against Arsenal last week, deciding to take a shot himself from a tight angle when he had two team-mates waiting for a pass and a simple finish in the six-yard box, and he did it countless times against Liverpool. 

Technically, Barkley is gifted enough to become one of the best players in the Premier League. That has always been a strong point of his game but from a tactical and psychological standpoint, the midfielder is still an extremely raw talent. His performance in the Merseyside derby defeat to Liverpool was the ultimate distillation of that.

Is Barkley the victim of hype? There is some truth to such an assertion, but after breaking into the starting lineup of a top-six Premier League club as a teenager and making his England debut as a 20-year-old, the hype was justified. Since then, he has failed to live up to it.

This season is turning into the most pivotal of Barkley’s career. He has been afforded a certain lenience until now, but he turned 23 earlier this month and so he must make the next step in his career. The 2016/17 campaign could be make or break for him, either making him a truly exceptional prospect or breaking him as one.