Chelsea’s loan of attacking midfielder Ross Barkley is working out for Aston Villa, but not for his own club in this difficult season.
Chelsea made an ill-advised late transfer window move to loan out Ross Barkley to Premier League competitors Aston Villa, strengthening Dean Smith’s squad in the process. So far, the loan move is working out famously, but for Aston Villa not Chelsea as Barkley has netted twice for Villa, having played in only two matches thus far. Villa is a fairly talented team featuring the sensational Jack Grealish (three goals and three assists in four games) made more so by the addition of Barkley.
Looking at the Premier League table, Villa sits in second place with 12 points on four games, only a point behind Everton with a game in hand. They are now a potential competitor to the Blues generally and maybe even a potential rival for a place in Europe.
Meanwhile, the stumbling Blues sit eighth, four points behind having played one more game. Thankfully, the season is young, the Blues have suffered damaging injuries and all the new signings have yet to coalesce. One fact is obvious though even at this point, the Blues are very thin at attacking midfield. This combines with paper-thin quality in central defense where they have numbers, but absent the aging Thiago Silva and at times, the inconsistent Kurt Zouma, there is no top-flight quality either.
That’s why the Barkley (especially) and Ruben Loftus-Cheek moves should leave Blues’ fans scratching their collective heads and asking why the club was allowed to get so thin there. Unless Mason Mount and/or Kai Havertz are in the midfield, there is no one there who can contribute pretty much anything at all as an attacker or goal-scorer. While N’Golo Kante has scored on occasion, he’s not an attacker no matter how hard some try to fit him into that position. Kante is what he is, an absolutely superb defensive midfielder. One of, if not the very best. In addition, neither Jorginho (absent his proclivity to be a marvelous penalty taker) nor Mateo Kovacic adds much of any scoring ability to the attack. They’re almost no threat whatsoever to score goals.
This leaves the midfield basically out of the attacking equation. There is no box-to-box midfielder there who can cap off a run with a blistering shot and goal. No Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, no Luka Modric, no Bruno Fernandes to add firepower from midfield to the attackers in the front-line. No one is putting Ross Barkley at the level of those three stars, but he frankly was the best the Blues had in that role, absent maybe Mount and certainly Havertz if they are slotted in there. Yet, they still inexplicably shipped him out. Why manager Frank Lampard allowed that bizarre move to be made is anyone’s guess.
This is no new sentiment here. A previous article stated quite clearly that Barkley added value to the club coming off the bench at least or even as a starter with his ability to drive the ball forward, shoot, and score. After Timo Werner and Christian Pulisic, he was Chelsea’s most direct attacking force. One great attribute defines his game, he drives fiercely toward the goal and lets the shots fly. Early, and often. And with power. There’s no over passing for Barkley. He was and is focused on shooting and scoring. As well he should be.
Barkley’s ability to drive toward goal created problems for Chelsea’s rivals as it is now doing for Villa’s opponents. Chelsea’s weakening its own team and strengthening a Premier League opponent has to be classified as another head-scratching move by the Blues. Sending Barkley out made little sense and Aston Villa is reaping the benefits of another questionable Chelsea personnel decision. Unless and until Chelsea alters its shape into a 4-3-3 with at least one (if not both) of Mount on the left and Havertz, as a roaming attacker with defensive responsibility on the right flanking Kante in midfield, this team will remain basically inept in attacking midfield. It’s a clear concession to all the Blues’ opponents and one that will be costly.
One hope is that perhaps Chelsea can recall Barkley in January but it’s doubtful that’s in the contract or in the cards. The mistake was made and the Blues will pay the price all season long. The only hope is that they come to their senses and bring him back for next season and that he doesn’t demand that the move to Aston Villa be made permanent.
If so, Chelsea will have thrown out a very solid player, perhaps finally ready to realize the enormous potential he had demonstrated as an emerging young star at Everton before injuries curtailed his development. Any way you look at it, it was an ill-advised and shortsighted move by the Blues at the outset to let Barkley go. Time will tell just how bad a decision it was as the rest of the season unfolds. It’s already bad, but it could be very bad, very bad, indeed.