EVERTON WEST BROM
Goodison Park: 12.30pm
FORMER Everton star Gareth Barry has urged the Merseysiders to seize their moment to break into the big time as Manchester City did during his time at the Etihad.
Carlo Ancelotti’s Toffees host West Brom at Goodison today having revamped their midfield, bringing in Abdoulaye Doucoure from Watford, Allan from Napoli and Colombia international James Rodriguez from Real Madrid.
Barry was at City during the early years of Sheikh Mansour’s ownership when the club landed big names but struggled to fulfil their potential.
He points to an electrifying speech given by Patrick Vieira to inspire the team before their
2011 FA Cup semi-final with Manchester
United. City went on to beat the Reds, then saw off Stoke to lift the trophy.
“That speech when Patrick spoke for Wembley did for me,” said Barry. “It changed the mindset of that dressing room. And you know, that year we did go on to win the FA Cup (below). In the next season, the Premier League came.
“So it’s that changing sort of mode where Everton need to move from believing they are this top club to actually competing at that top level.”
It is understood Everton have other targets with about three weeks left of the transfer window.
Barry, who holds the Premier League appearance record with 653, played 155 times for Everton and was voted player of the season in 2015-16. He believes his old club are finally set to mature into big hitters after the last few seasons of false dawns under billionaire majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri.
“Certainly the quality of players that have come in and the way they’ve started, they’re making steps towards that,” he said.
“They’re in that sort of position where the next moment is going to be really vital if they want to be competing.”
The last of Barry’s four clubs, West Brom, appear to have a testing season ahead after a chastening 3-0 defeat at home to Leicester on the opening weekend.
Barry, who announced his retirement at the age of 39 last month, urged Slaven Bilic and his promoted Baggies not to lose heart as the going gets tough. “It would have been a real eye-opener, the quality that they faced against Leicester,” he said. “But there are a lot more games ahead and they need to keep the belief.
“They’ve a lot of good young players in the dressing room. There’s no point getting down about one performance. This could be the perfect game to get that belief going.
“People are going to now feel they can roll West Brom over, so Slaven will have a big part to play now to keep that belief.”
Barry believes another of his clubs, Aston Villa, have played a blinder to tie Jack Grealish to a new five-year deal.
He said: “It’s fantastic for Aston Villa. To see Jack Grealish leave would have been devastating for the club.
“He’s still young. He still has a lot to do at Aston Villa. He’s not played that many games in the Premier League for them, so if there is a time further down the line he feels he’s outgrown Aston Villa then maybe.
“But I definitely felt that was possibly too early, so I’m delighted for Jack and the club.”