Chelsea FC alum helps Aston Villa to crucial away win

Six games into the 2024/2025 UEFA Champions League, an unfamiliar name is sitting pretty in the top six positions; Aston Villa. They’d actually be joint second with Bayer Leverkusen if the reigning Bundesliga champions didn’t have a very slight (one goal) advantage in terms of goal difference.

Villa are behaving like regulars in Europe’s elite club competition but other than winning the European Cup four decades ago, the Birmingham club has been a stranger to European nights. Indeed, before Unai Emery’s arrival, Villa had been oscillating between mid-table mediocrity and the relegation zone of the English Premier League standings.

Doesn’t he play for Luton?

One of the members of this Villa squad that’s busy upsetting Europe’s heavyweights is Ross Barkley. His 85th-minute strike yesterday saw Emery’s men pocket all three points against RB Leipzig who now leave the Champions League with their tails tucked between their legs. The Saxony side are unrecognizable from the side that reached the 2019/2020 UCL semi-finals, but that’s a story for another day. Back to Barkley.

If you thought he was plying his trade with Luton Town in the EFL Champion, I don’t blame you. The news of his return to Aston Villa in the summer barely made a ripple in the media. The transfer fee hardly dented Villa’s purse but bagging 5 million pounds for a player they got on a free transfer was a right steal for Luton.

A promising signing

At 31 years of age, Barkley seems resigned to the fact that he no longer has the world at his feet. One can be forgiven for wondering what Emery was thinking signing Barkley while Chelsea and Arsenal are trying out their Roméo Lavias and Ethan Nwaneris. While the Manchester teams are handing their Kobbie Mainoos and Rico Lewises first-team responsibilities.

However, when he signed with Chelsea at the beginning of 2018, Barkley seemed to be on the brink of a promising career. He had just recovered from a long injury layoff, but Antonio Conte was confident the Liverpudlian could contribute positively. The club even bestowed on him the revered number 8 jersey worn by club legend Frank Lampard. 

In a team that already had the likes of Eden Hazard, Willian, Christian Pulisic and Conor Gallagher in midfield Barkley had to wait his turn on Chelsea’s bench. His debut also coincided with a poor run for the Blues that ended with Conte’s sacking.

But when new coach Maurizzio Sarri gave Barkley a chance, he rose to the occasion scoring consistently both in the EPL and the Europa League. The purple patch didn’t last and the player didn’t help his cause with highly publicized off-field shenanigans. Chelsea didn’t wait for the end of the 2020/2021 season to ship him out to Aston Villa on loan.

Brief sojourn in France

A decent run at Villa Park secured a return to the Blues at the end of Barkley’s loan spell but he still couldn’t nail a place in the first team. Just before the August 2022 transfer window closed, the former England international was sent across the Channel to Ligue 1 side Nice.

Following yet another unremarkable season, Barkley returned to his home country where Luton Town welcomed him as a free agent. His first appearance for the Hatters was a 3-0 defeat to Chelsea and by now you know how this short story ended. 

Given that we’re almost halfway through the season and he’s still a sparingly-used sub for Emery, the current episode of the Ross Barkley show doesn’t promise a different ending. So even though his goal yesterday was a heavily deflected shot which was hit more in hope than in expectation, let us not begrudge this Chelsea alum his moment in the sun.