Only two Everton players have ever won BBC Goal of the Month twice and they’re arguably the two most-gifted graduates of the club’s academy in the Premier League era.
One of them, Wayne Rooney, who went on to win every club honour in football and was Manchester United and England’s all-time leading scorer when he hung up his boots, received the Goal of the Month honour on a record eight occasions. A brace of those came with the Blues in his two different spells, over 15 years apart – his first ever Premier League strike against Arsenal on October 19, 2002 and then the long-range effort from his own half to complete a hat-trick against West Ham United on November 29, 2017.
The other is Ross Barkley, who in contrast, struck his pair in the same year – again both at Goodison Park – against Manchester City on May 3, 2014 and Queens Park Rangers on December 15 (* Here’s a quiz question for you, how many of the other seven can you name? Answers at the foot of the article). In between those two crackers, a then 20-year-old Barkley went to the World Cup finals where he featured in all three of England’s matches in Brazil.
His Everton manager Roberto Martinez described Barkley as being a mix between Paul Gascoigne and Michael Ballack. England boss Roy Hodgson reckoned Barkley’s pace and power plus excellent technique were reminiscent of the aforementioned Three Lions’ Italia ’90 star who later turned out for the Blues between the years of 2000 and 2002.
READ NEXT: Everton face new stadium dilemma with fans split over emotional decision
READ NEXT: Every angle of new Everton kit 2023/24 as unique Goodison Park feature commemorated
Frank Lampard declared that Barkley reminded him of a young Rooney while Spanish legend Xavi proclaimed in 2014 that the lad from Wavertree was good enough to play for Barcelona due to his physical and technical qualities in both areas. Fast forward to the present day and six months shy of his 30th birthday, Barkley is a free agent after being released by Ligue 1 club Nice.
A year ago, Barkley – who had returned to Stamford Bridge after an underwhelming season on loan at Aston Villa – had the final year of his £200,000-a-week contract at Chelsea cancelled by mutual consent and had been hoping to revive his career on the French Riviera. However, he started just nine league games, didn’t feature at all for Nice in Europe – being left out of their squad for the knockout stages of the UEFA Europa Conference League – but did have a rare start in their French Cup humbling at Le Puy Foot where Nice suffered a 1-0 giant-killing against opponents who were relegated to the fourth tier at the end of the season.
Where next then for this once precocious talent? Like Rooney before him, Barkley was once a fearsome and fearless man-child, bossing proceedings against much older, senior pros but the pair both possessed far more than just brute force.
Think of those two strikes that earned Barkley his brace of Goal of the Month awards. The one against Manchester City was an instinctive right-foot curling effort, hit first time from outside the area. His finish against QPR came from a similar distance on his left after a purposeful run forward.
Like Rooney’s aforementioned ‘worldies’, not many players – even Barkley’s peers – could score such goals and that’s what made them special. The same could be said for his spectacular individual effort against Newcastle United at St James’ Park on March 26, 2014 – one of the most-stunning goals this correspondent has been privileged enough to witness live – when, having picked up possession in his own half, he sprinted forward for over 60 yards, taking out three defenders before firing into the roof of Tim Krul’s net. Barkley missed out on Goal of the Month because Rooney again struck from way out against West Ham.
The crucial difference between the pair though is that while Rooney was a football genius, for all his incredible natural talent, Barkley’s decision-making continued to let him down and in that sense he never seems to have fully matured. Even when Rooney’s legs had gone and having watched him labour in Everton’s 5-1 Europa League humiliation at home to Atalanta, Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport declared: “He is a walking monument, it is sad to see him in this condition,” he produced that sensational hat-trick against David Moyes’ Hammers to roll back the years.
With over a decade’s experience at the top and over 380 matches for club and country under his belt, Barkley should still be at the peak of his powers. But is he even close to being as an effective a player as when he quit Goodison Park for Chelsea in a £15million deal in January 2018 – four months after he could have made the same move for a fee that would have brought in £20million more for Everton. At the time, the player – in a similar vein to Anthony Gordon when he joined Newcastle United earlier this year – cited the need as a local lad to escape the Merseyside goldfish bowl – but many Blues were left angry by the acrimonious exit from someone who was supposedly one of their own.
When praising his first Chelsea manager Antonio Conte the following season, Barkley looked back on his time at his boyhood club and claimed: “Over the years I haven’t really been coached much,” a remark that many Evertonians took to heart as sounding ungrateful. Like that other Prodigal Son Rooney though, they always come back in time, whether that’s mentally or in his case, physically.
Perhaps tellingly, Barkley’s most-recent tweet came on May 28, the final day of the Premier League season when he wrote: “F****** come on Everton,” accompanied by a blue heart emoji. Yet as much as Sean Dyche’s side are crying out for creative talent and their former charge represents an affordable option at a time with funds are understood to be tight, it would be a brave person to predict a second coming for Barkley and the Blues this summer.
(* Those other Everton winners of BBC Goal of the Month were Barry Horne v Wimbledon, May 1994; James McFadden v Charlton Athletic, April 2007; Kevin Mirallas v West Ham United, May 2013; Andros Townsend v Burnley, September 2021; Vitalii Mykolenko v Leicester City, May 2022; Demarai Gray v Manchester City, December 2022; Seamus Coleman v Leeds United, February 2023)
