Squawka Young Player of the week – Ross Barkley

In a performance that led his manager Roberto Martinez to draw comparisons with Michael Ballack and Paul Gascoigne, Ross Barkley wins the Squawka Young Player of the Weekend award for his role in Everton’s impressive 1-1 draw against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday. Barkley beat Liverpool’s Philippe Coutinho and Norwich City’s Nathan Redmond to the title, with a performance score of 43.

Barkley was the key man for Everton as they set about dominating Arsenal on their own patch for large spells of the game. As his Heat Map from the game (below) shows, Barkley’s touches of the ball came in a number of different areas across the midfield. In his post-match interview he revealed that he had been told by Martinez to play in the areas between Arsenal’s back four and Mikel Arteta and, as shown by the heat map, he managed this with aplomb. Arteta was reduced to his second lowest Performance Score of the season by a performance in which Barkley frequently evaded him to pick the ball up and drive at the Arsenal defence.

The action below provides a snapshot of the kind of thing that Barkley was doing all game. Picking the ball up in intelligent positions in between the different structures of Arsenal’s formation, he showed a movement and technical ability beyond his years to threaten the Arsenal defence on numerous occasions.

Over the course of the game he made 57 passes as Everton out-passed their table-topping opponents. He also created more chances than any player on the pitch, producing three key passes (shown in yellow).

As well as providing creativity for others from deep, Barkley also provided a goal threat himself. Bursting towards goal from central areas, he managed to complete three take ons over the course of the game. He also produced three attempts on goal – more than any other Everton player.

When young players burst on to the public eye it is often due to doing the Hollywood element of the game well, producing the kind of spectacular wonder goal that announced Wayne Rooney’s presence,  or the raw pace and fearless dribbling of Raheem Sterling last season. Whilst Barkley did this to an extent with his strike against Norwich, his ability to find pockets of space at the Emirates and to cause as much trouble as he did to a seasoned campaigner such as Mikel Arteta shows that this exciting youngster is likely to justify the hype and be here to stay.