This article has been a long time in the making. It’s gone through several drafts under various titles, ranging from the probing heading of ‘Will Barry’s form for club and country pick up soon?’ to the blunt ‘Just what is the point of Gareth Barry anymore?’. Last night’s terrible performance marks a watershed, a low point in Barry’s England career and surely one which should consign him to the fringes of the English starting eleven.
It’s troubling just how poor Barry has been the last 18 months or so. His first full season at club level for moneybags Man City was lacklustre to say the least and he’s picked up where he left off for his club this term with string of performances notable only for their anonymity.
Barry’s rise from steady eddy club pro to key member for club and country was rapid and went hand in hand with him nailing down the central midfield berth at former club Aston Villa. He’s always been a versatile player, capable of filling in at left back, left midfield and of course, central midfield, and he flourished in the middle, in particular in the 2007/8 season where he attracted the interest of Liverpool in one of the most boring, never-ending, protracted transfer sagas in recent memory.
The key components to his success during this period were his composure, his neat and tidy passing and his movement and speed of thought. He was as close as this country has come to producing a pass and move player for quite some time and he oozed class in the middle of the park. Now, however, Barry looks cumbersome, panicky and simply lost most of the time.
The things that made him such a key player for club and country he seems to have forgotten. Embarrassingly bad at the World Cup, admittedly amongst a pretty rotten bunch, he’s become so slow and pedestrian it’s like watching someone running through water or in slow motion most of the time.
The role he’s asked to perform is one of a defensive shield, a laughable prospect considering his lack of pace, tackling ability and aggression. Without meaning to sound glib, I honestly can’t remember the last time Gareth Barry put in a decent performance, for either club or country. He’s simply a ghost, a passenger that’s routinely outclassed against opposition of any reasonable quality.
The irony that he left Aston Villa to pursue Champions League football with Man City, yet could be one of City’s biggest obstacles to achieving such a feat cannot be emphasised enough. Under a different manager, a manager that didn’t persist with such a defensive outlook as Mancini does, would Barry still be playing week in week out for City right now? The answer is far from certain.
England’s performance against France was both extremely poor and disappointing. Andy Carroll looked lively but starved of service, Jordan Henderson, a talented player with a bright international career ahead of him suffered at the hands of Samir Nasri et al in a supreme display of passing football for long periods and the shape of the side looked poorly conceived from the outset against a much more organised, fluid France side.
The midfield trio of Barry, Milner and Henderson simply didn’t work. Milner gave it his usual shift. Milner is a grafter through and through, mixed in with the odd moment of quality and he performed as expected in the role given. Henderson though, a young 20 year-old making his senior debut for the national team on the back of an inspiring display for his club Sunderland in their 3-0 victory at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, looked like a lost little boy and faded badly after a bright start. Just when he needed the guidance of a senior figure beside him, to lead by example, Barry wilted under the pressure and expectation.
Given the rudimentary task of retaining possession via a five-yard square ball, he seemed to falter in this most basic of tasks for the majority of the game. I don’t hold Henderson accountable given his relative lack of experience and the old cliché that he‘ll become a better player for the experience, on this occasion at least, surely holds carries some weight.
This was a friendly lest we forget and I applaud Capello for trying in-form youngsters, and the result, while disappointing especially considering the terrible team performance, was not the be-all and end-all of this fixture. But, it has gone some way to dispelling the myth that for England to play well, that they need Gareth Barry to be playing.
At 29years of age, Barry isn’t over the hill yet, but he isn’t far off. Only a lack of real alternatives are keeping him in the starting eleven. Tom Huddlestone and Scott Parker represent better options for the immediate future. One of Capello’s main principles upon becoming England manager was to state that unlike previous regimes, he was to have no favourites, he would pick only on form. Surely on this principle alone, Barry’s days in an England shirt are numbered?
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