Looking back, the quotes have a tinge of sadness to them.
“I’m overwhelmed, I’m looking forward to it and I’m really excited to get started,” said Ross Barkley. “To be given a fresh start at a new club like Chelsea, it’s unbelievable for me. I’m looking forward to continuing where I left off at the end of last season and hoping to improve and add more goals to my game.”
It was January 5, 2018 and Barkley had just completed a £15million transfer from his boyhood club Everton to Chelsea. The 24-year-old had signed a five-year contract with the Blues and was being hailed by club director Marina Granovskaia for his “outstanding technical and physical attributes” and “strong desire to succeed at the highest level”.
Chelsea is a difficult place to settle in. Perhaps more than any other club in the Premier League; they were driven by short-term goals under Roman Abramovich’s ownership. If a player wasn’t working, then money was generally made available to find a replacement.
But Barkley looked like a promising addition to the Blues’ midfield. In hindsight, Antonio Conte’s slightly more tempered thoughts perhaps hinted at what was to follow. "He's a good prospect but at the same time, it will be very important to understand, if the player signs, we must have patience to help him recover," the Chelsea manager said, referring to the hamstring injury Barkley arrived in West London with.
Four-and-a-half years later, Barkley is gone, having been released a year early from his contract by mutual consent at the age of 28. The word “patience” has not been high on the agenda, with Conte the first of four managers at Chelsea during Barkley’s time at the club.
He leaves having made 100 appearances in all competitions. He scored 12 goals, registered 10 assists and helped to win three trophies: the Europa League, FA Cup and Club World Cup. Those statistics are far from disastrous – after all, many other Chelsea transfers in recent years have a much worse money-to-output ratio – but there is still a major sense of disappointment for Barkley.
What could have been
Chelsea’s interest in Barkley stemmed from his wonderful 2015/16 Premier League season with Everton. His side may have finished a disappointing 11th in the top flight, but it was a high-water mark for him and a defining campaign for Romelu Lukaku, with whom he formed a productive partnership.
Playing as a free-roaming central attacking midfielder, Barkley’s technique, speed and ambitious forward-thinking mentality made him a nightmare to defend against. He returned eight goals and eight assists in the Premier League, while Lukaku scored 25 goals.
During this time, analysis like this from former Everton midfielder Kevin Kilbane on Match of the Day was far from rare: “What I’ve always liked about him during his career is this: you know he’s got this natural ability to beat players, almost like Paul Gascoigne.”
At his best, Barkley is a natural footballer who looks like he has all the attributes required to be a prolific all-rounder. There was a time when Everton considered him to be worth a world-record transfer fee, with a star turn with England at the 2014 World Cup hopefully on the horizon.
“Even if we got a Gareth Bale-size valuation we would never even consider it in January,” then-Everton manager Roberto Martinez insisted in December 2013. “Ross is an icon for us. He represents everything we are trying to do this season, so even if a stupid offer arrived in January it would never, never affect us.”
Bright spark
The sacking of Conte as Chelsea manager in July 2018 appeared to be bad news for Barkley. But his successor, Maurizio Sarri, actually turned out to be beneficial for his development. The Italian manager oversaw Barkley’s most productive Chelsea season in 2018/19.
October 2018 was Barkley’s all-too-brief bright spark in the Chelsea shirt. He scored his first Chelsea goal in a 3-0 win over Southampton and followed it with a last-minute equaliser against Manchester United and another strike in a 4-0 win over Burnley.
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His succession of impressive showings led to some high praise from his manager. “In the first month he was in trouble,” said Sarri in November 2018. “Then he started to improve in every training, in every match. He is a complete player. He has physical qualities. He is fast. Technically he’s very good, good with left and right foot. I think he’s on the way to becoming a very important midfielder, not only in England.”
While Barkley’s influence waned in the 2018/19 season, he still ended it with a trophy, adding a Europa League winners’ medal to the one he earned for the FA Cup the year before. As it turned out, that was about as good as it was going to get for Barkley at Chelsea, with his spark already fading.
Gradual decline
Frank Lampard’s arrival as manager should have suited Barkley. Here was one of the best box-to-box midfielders of his era who could have reignited the flame, but the arrival of Mateo Kovacic from Real Madrid in the summer of 2019 increased the competition in central midfield and Barkley struggled to break into the side, with the Croatia international, N’Golo Kante, Jorginho and Mason Mount hogging the minutes.
An ankle injury didn’t help. Neither did a row with a Liverpool taxi driver over spilled chips, which saw him escorted to a cash machine by two police officers. Nor did a trip to Dubai during the international break, during which he made headlines after being pictured topless in a nightclub. Lampard was not best pleased. “Ross knows how I felt about the first headline. I backed him then and I still back him now,” Lampard said. "But he showed a moment of a lack of professionalism as far as I'm concerned.”
The following month, Barkley opened up about the incident, professionalism and his desire to turn things around. “I am a very professional player but that 10 seconds doesn’t make you look professional. That’s just the way football is now with phones. You have to adapt to the way things are now,” he said at the time. “It’s a big lesson. You have got to be aware of your surroundings when you let your hair down for any player out there.”
Barkley returned just one goal and four assists in 21 Premier League appearances under Lampard in the 2019/20 season. With things not working out, he joined Aston Villa for the following campaign, where despite more game time and a few glimpses of potential, he ultimately failed to resurrect his career.
Last season was the worst of the lot: six Premier League appearances. He did at least end on a high by scoring the last goal of the Abramovich era in the season-concluding 2-1 win over Watford in May. But his Chelsea career fizzled out.
Barkley has been linked to West Brom and Burnley, as well as a move to MLS, while a move to reunite with his former Everton boss David Moyes at West Ham appears unlikely after the Irons' big-money signing of Lucas Paqueta from Lyon. Still just 28, Barkley has time to turn things around and, as a free agent, he has control of his future.
A late-career renaissance is surely not beyond a player who once lit up the Premier League to earn comparisons with Gascoigne.
