Barkley staying with Blues, says Lampard
FRANK Lampard has insisted Ross Barkley is going nowhere despite West Ham admitting interest in signing the Chelsea midfielder on loan.
Barkley has just shaken off a niggling foot injury and forced his way back into Chelsea’s firstteam picture, and impressed in the Blues’ 3-0 Premier League win over Burnley.
Lampard, whose side travel to Newcastle today, criticised the 26-year-old earlier this season for lacking professionalism after a row with a taxi driver in Liverpool, but has now insisted Barkley remains central to his plans.
Lampard said: “There’s no talk here of Ross Barkley going anywhere; he’s our player.
“He’s played the last couple of games and done very well. I’ve got a lot of faith in Ross. That was news I heard like everyone else, but there’s absolutely no feeling towards that here.”
IT is nostalgia Ole Gunnar Solskjaer might not be so willing to engage in, but there are many elements of this Liverpool side that surely remind him of his best Manchester United teams.
It is not just that they’re European champions, or even the winning run they’re on as they hone in on a title. Liverpool have obliterated Sir Alex Ferguson’s best United sides, as well as pretty much everyone else, in terms of pure results.
It is more so the ‘rhythm’ that has fired such a run, and continues to propel this team. That is very reminiscent of Ferguson’s best United teams. They are just on that plane of performance, and mentality, where everything eventually comes off. It comes from complete trust in how the side works, that offers such a level of conviction in every individual piece of play.
This was especially true in what now feels the season’s peak display, and what may come to be seen as an inevitable title win’s signature performance: the 4-0 win away to Leicester City over Christmas. As much as a team convincingly winning a significant match, it was one fully understanding the game’s symbolic importance and thereby ruthlessly emphasising their superiority and complete command of every facet of their play.
Ferguson had many like this, from the 3-0 win over Liverpool in 2007-08 to the 6-1 over Arsenal in 2000-01 to — perhaps most closely — the 3-0 away to Norwich City in that long-awaited title season of 1992-93.
Paul Parker played in that game at Carrow Road and just remembers the vigour of the team.
“The boss gave a speech about individuals and standards and we went out and destroyed Norwich.”
This is now the big challenge for Solskjaer, as he finds himself on the other side of such a force of will, that has only grown since he became the first manager to claim a league result off the leaders this season.
It is also the big question for the rest of Liverpool’s season, especially as regards just how much this side can achieve.
Figuring out how to stop them tactically is only the first part. There’s then the more confounding issue of mentally unsettling them, of breaking that will — if it’s even possible. It wasn’t with that United, because of how hardwired the hard edge was.
Parker described Ferguson’s aggression before that Norwich game, but Klopp does have a