Widely considered as an astute signing last summer, Ross Barkley is proving to be exactly that for Aston Villa as he continues to make key contributions.
After his impressive spell at Luton Town, the 31-year-old was brought back to Villa Park last year after his previous loan spell with us, and given his experience, ability to be an ideal fit for Unai Emery’s style of play and system and the value in the deal, it looked like a savvy addition to our squad.
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Still, Barkley faced stiff competition for a starting berth given the midfield options already available to the Villa boss, and given only four of his 22 appearances so far this season have been as a starter, he has had to take his opportunities when they’ve presented themselves and bide his time.
Fortunately, despite that limited role, he continues to make pivotal contributions to the team, as his goal against Leicester City this weekend was his fourth of the campaign, while he also has an assist to his name.
Aside from the class in his sweetly-struck opener which broke the deadlock after Villa had struggled for nearly an hour to produce any attacking quality of note, Barkley’s technical ability allowed him to be one of the few in the Villa side to help us play with fluidity and continue to dictate and control tempo and possession for large spells.
There is little doubt that Emery values the midfielder highly, and he was delighted for him after making another decisive impact on his return to the Villa starting line-up.
“Ross Barkley is always working fantastic and he helped us today scoring a goal, working with his qualities, I’m happy with him and he’s always positive,” Emery said in his post-match press conference.
With John McGinn now sidelined by injury, it remains to be seen if that opens up a window of opportunity for Barkley to feature more prominently, as with the option of dropping him or Youri Tielemans in the deeper midfield pivot or a more advanced role, that versatility gives him a greater chance of seeing more minutes.
Particularly in games like the one against Leicester though, where the opposition sit deeper and in numbers to pack the middle of the pitch and frustrate us, we need creativity, penetration and bravery from our ball-playing midfielders to find gaps and pick out holes in their defensive shape and structure, be it through passing or taking the initiative and driving forward themselves.
Barkley is more than capable of doing that as he opened things up on a few occasions prior to our breakthrough, and so he’s shown that he can be a valuable asset for us when we’re trying to break a stubborn defence down.
We’ll face more of that as this season progresses with more teams trying to replicate what Leicester and others have done in the past to frustrate us, and as he continues to make crucial contributions, Barkley will undoubtedly continue to be a vital option for Emery in the coming weeks and months.
Ross’ precision on this strike 🤤 pic.twitter.com/AQOkdVwPAa
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) January 4, 2025
