Aaron Collins will watch Wales’ Euro 2024 against Croatia on Saturday in comforting surroundings, but unlike most fans dreaming of being in the thick of the action, the Bristol Rovers striker may view proceedings with a tinge of regret that, for a time, it was a realistic possibility for him.
There is a theory held among some members of the Rovers hierarchy that for all Collins’ spectacular achievements in front of goal this season - and even if he has cooled off at the wrong time, 15 goals and 11 assists in 37 appearances still make for impressive numbers - he’s been hamstrung by where he plays the majority of his football.
Not Rovers or League One, to an extent, although Barton did note players have to “catch fire” in the third tier to truly grab attention, but the modest confines of the Mem, because scouts that have checked on him for the Welsh FA reach the conclusion that, yes, it’s all well and good doing this in front of 9,500 people in north Bristol, but how can he adapt to crowds of 30,000+ at international level.
It’s a crude assessment that stands up to a point as Nathan Broadhead - nine goals and two assists in 33 games for Wigan and Ipswich - was selected, with the belief being that the pressure of Portman Road and a promotion battle makes the step that little bit shorter. But then again you also have to consider the fact that six of Tom Lockyer’s 14 caps for Wales were won while playing regularly inside the very same stadium as Collins, including his debut in 2017.
At the very least he now knows a little more about what’s required of him. The World Cup omission (if that’s even the right term given he’s never been in the squad before) did arrive during one of his purple patches but it would have been a huge call by Rob Page to have included an untested and untried striker for Wales’ first appearance in the tournament for 64 years.
Timing has proven unfortunate for Collins, but clearly his run of just three goals and two assists in 13 games since the turn of the year hasn’t forced his name into the conversation with enough volume.
Croatia and Latvia on Tuesday may make for tough watches but, at the same time, for Rovers and Collins that discussion is over and the 25-year-old can focus on finishing the season for the Gas in the manner that at one point was defining his campaign.
With nine games remaining, even with the toughest of schedules among the bottom half of League One, the target of 20 goals and 15 assists is plausible. And with the noise having died down - which Barton believes has impacted his performances - there can be a clarity of thought.
Without going over the events of last Tuesday and the manager’s subsequent explanation at why he was so disappointed with his No10, a line appears to have been drawn under it all and speaking after the defeat to Portsmouth, Barton was keen to emphasise the strong working relationship he enjoys with his star striker.
“It’s tricky when the big headline goes in, and I know you’ve got to sell papers - ‘stripped of captaincy’ - and he gets the blow back from that,” Barton said. “Lucky for me, I’ve got a really good working relationship with him and you can’t be stripped of a captaincy you never actually owned.
"Paul Coutts had been the captain from the start of the season and then Sam Finley. Aaron had been the talisman for the team and when those boys were missing I felt it was right that he was given the opportunity. It’s been well documented and we spoke about it that he lost that privilege for me because of what happened on the Tuesday night but he wasn’t ever going to come out of the team.
"I just felt his performances in the armband… some people grow into it and find another level and I don’t really think Aaron had really done that. Even if I look back to the Morecambe game and beyond. And sometimes the stuff you do before the game, being the captain, can distract people.
“I spoke to him and said it’s not really impacted your game, I think you need to realise if you are our captain there are certain things that are required from you and certainly after Tuesday night he’s crystal clear at what’s not required from him and taking the material piece of material of him was the mindset; just let him go and focus on his game and prepare himself.
“I had a good chat with him in the morning and we’ve got a really good working relationship. His performance levels (against Portsmouth) were better albeit he’s still not firing on all cylinders.”
To enable that process again, his engine very evidently has needed a cool down as his sharpness and explosiveness has been lacking, not in moments at such, but over the course of games where Collins continually had a knack of making something out of nothing for Rovers and leading from the front, even though he still can’t be considered a senior figure.
That trait coupled with his popularity in the squad is what drew Barton towards handing him the captaincy in the absence of Paul Coutts and Sam Finley, with the latter to retake the armband from Lewis Gibson providing he comes through Friday’s friendly against Aston Villa at Bodymoor Heath unscathed.
A friendly it may be but Collins will undoubtedly savour the prospect of playing against Premier League-standard defenders as another benchmark of his development which, when you consider his arrival at Rovers in the summer of 2021, is pretty remarkable.
There can be no standing still and Collins needs himself to be back to his devilish best, but so also do Rovers, due to an increasing collective drought in front of goal that has led to John Marquis’ early header against Burton Albion being the only time they have breached an opposition goalkeeper over the last seven games at the Mem.
The quality of the chances he receives or creates for himself are probably impacted by him being stationed that little bit deeper, as Barton has recently favoured a front two of Marquis and Josh Coburn but volume-wise he’s still producing with five shots against Portsmouth and three in the Wycombe Wanderers performance.
As the end of the season draws nearer it’s also hard to ignore the elephant in the room and what the summer could bring.
It’s slightly irrelevant to discuss it at this precise moment given what could transpire over these remaining nine games and how that affects his market value (and the Swansea chat that has been readily circulated as some kind of mitigating factor in his dip in performances, to the point a young lad sat behind the press box on Saturday was even talking about it as fact, is simply a rumour without foundation), but with scouting firmly underway and recruitment plans being drawn up, Rovers will have one budget calculated with Collins in the squad, and another without. And the latter figure will be considerably larger than the former.
As detailed in the minutes for the board meeting in January, Rovers had overspent this season by £537,000, largely on their playing budget, with losses in the next set of accounts likely to be in the £3m-£3.5m region; that range having been quoted by CEO Tom Gorringe on the What the Footie podcast earlier this month.
There’s no indication Collins wants to leave per se, as he said himself in January, although situations do change very quickly in football, but based on Barton’s considerable ambitions for this team and the financial landscape he is having to operate in, it's fair to conclude they could be in a position where they can’t afford not to sell him, providing, of course, a suitable price point is reached.
As mentioned, what exactly that is will be, in part, determined over the frantic 31 days when the Gas return to League One action; Sheffield Wednesday, Derby County and Plymouth Argyle represent three of the best four teams in the division, and at least one, perhaps two, will be playing in the Championship next season.
Barton was visibly irked by the concept of Rovers’ season petering out whereby there is nothing tangible for them to play for, which may prove true to an extent, albeit with a 52-point target to be reached a further daylight put between them and the bottom four. But for a number of individuals in their squad, either playing for contracts and increasingly their own future due to Barton’s scrutiny of their performances at this level, there are nine opportunities to prove whatever points they need to.
You have a feeling that after the disappointment of Wales - and irrespective of if that’s impacted his output for Rovers or not, he’s evidently not been scoring with the same velocity or intensity - and with a very public rap of the knuckles by his manager over required standards, this final stage of the season means an awful lot to Aaron Collins.
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