Barkley was only winner on night of shame in Bulgaria
THERE have been a dozen arrests in the wake of the racial abuse in the Vasil Levski Stadium and there are more to come.
The president of the Bulgarian Football Union resigned and the coach followed suit.
Both the Bulgarian Football Union and the Football Association – the English FA, that is – have been charged with offences by UEFA.
And of gravest concern is the continuing lack of information surrounding the death of England fan Rob Spray, who passed away in police custody in Sofia.
The quest to find out the exact circumstances of the West Brom supporter’s death needs to be relentless and backed by every appropriate authority – the government, the police and the FA. The mystery surrounding Spray’s tragic fate is simply not acceptable.
No, everything about England’s couple of days in Sofia relegated the actual football to a triviality.
Which, of course, in the context of racial abuse and a fatality, it truly is.
But, as Tyrone Mings pointed out in a post-match tweet, the football was not bad. The English football, not the Bulgarian football – that was rubbish.
And that has to be the context for making any judgements on English players.
Had the focus not shifted to far more serious matters, though, Monday would have gone down as a landmark game in the career of Ross Barkley. Two goals and a couple of sublime passes – a driving, attacking performance, the type everyone expected from the moment Barkley emerged on the scene in 2011 with Everton.
But the truth is that few managers, of his club or country, have really trusted Barkley. Maybe Roberto Martinez had the fullest faith
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it it’s fi fair t to guess. and Antonio Conte must have quite liked him, having been in charge when Barkley moved to Stamford Bridge in January of 2018.
However, there have always been reservations.
Gareth Southgate seems unsure, hence why Mason Mount got the nod ahead of Barkley in Prague.
We all know Southgate can do little wrong, but that was a decision that backfired badly.
Prior to yesterday’s match against Newcastle when both were in the starting XI for Chelsea, Mount – across all competitions – had made 10 starts for his club this season, twice Barkley’s total.
It has not helped Barkley that he has been prone to the odd spot of off- the- field bother, taking a punch in a Liverpool nightclub in 2017 and dropping his chips on the floor of a cab the other week.
While he represented England at every junior level through to the Under-21s, he is not an archetypal St George’s Park product.
But what Barkley, whose potential remains unfulfilled a couple of months shy of his 26th birthday, showed in Sofia is that he can be England’s game-changer.
He can be that creative, driving midfield force that England are crying out for and that Chelsea could certainly use.
October 14, 2019, in Sofia will be remembered for all the wrong, very sad, reasons.
But it might just have been when one of the most prodigious talents in English football finally came of age.