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Barkley: Believe The Hype (Again)

After last season I had genuine fears over Ross Barkley and where his career was going. He seemed to be a player low on confidence, only occasionally showing his magic and more often being absent in games. This lead Martinez to remove him from the No. 10 role and play him out wide which only seemed to further his decline. For me, young players reach a critical point in their development after an initial burst onto the scene where they can either kick on and fulfill their potential or plateau, never to reach the levels people thought capable. At certain points last season the hyperbole died away, the comparisons stopped and so did the excitement.

I thought at the end of last season that Barkley had reached that critical point, if he didn’t progress soon then maybe he never would. An opening day goal against Watford was maybe just what he needed to give him and the fans hope that all that talent wouldn’t go to waste. The way he has played this season has been fantastic. His rare good game has turned into a rare bad game. His rare good pass has turned into a rare bad one.

What does his journey so far tell us about football players and football fans? Nothing new, but still we never learn from our mistakes. The development of some footballers takes time, and they should be given time. Barkley will go through bad patches again, but will hopefully now have the confidence to ride any criticism and be stronger mentally for it. He has already had to deal with a leg break, incredible hype, sharp criticism, complete loss of form, a dismal World Cup for his country, media scrutiny and again, hype. That is a lot of incredible mental ups and downs for a man of 21 years. Especially the sickening leg break which Everton fans sometimes forget and a lot of non-Everton fans are probably unaware ever even happened. At 16 years old and on the brink of debut, to lose a whole season to injury isn’t easy to come back from. Mentally or physically.

Comeback he did, fears that we may have lost an incredible talent were soon forgotten. His 2013/14 season was real break-out year and had people using every adjective under the sun to try and heap praise on him. His current performances are a huge relief to Everton and England fans but temptation shouldn’t be resisted to get carried away. Players simply have to deal with the reality of the extremes of opinions that people have. The ideals of ‘let him play’ and 'develop in his own time’ have never been a reality and never will be. I’ve seen Barkley compared to almost every great midfielder in modern times. From Ballack and Gascoigne to more recently Totti and Baggio. The reality is though that all those players were 'the new’ somebody at Barkley’s age, and they all dealt with it. Rather than seeing it as a negative, we should build players up to deal with such grand praise. Players having arrogance needs to be promoted. Not an arrogance of self-worth or standing, but an arrogance in ability.

Hopefully Barkley’s confidence is here to stay. He has a club manager who is willing to promote his ability and not criticise him for his mistakes. Hopefully Hodgson after his irresponsible public criticism of Barkley has learnt to do the same. Any advice on his footballing ability and decision making should be given privately by a coach and not publicly for the back pages. Barkley could be one of the best players in the world, and I think he responds better when that’s played up, not down.