Roberto Martínez has said Ross Barkley’s determination to shoulder responsibility for Everton’s problems last season is behind the midfielder’s impressive start to the Premier League campaign.
The 21-year-old has scored two goals and created two in the league so far and produced another influential display in last weekend’s 3-1 defeat of Chelsea, albeit with his contribution overshadowed by the champions’ malaise, Steven Naismith’s hat-trick and John Stones’ display against his summer suitors.
Barkley struggled last term, admitting his confidence had been affected as Everton hovered above the relegation zone and he came in for severe criticism; he did not feature for England at the European Under-21 Championship as he enjoyed an overdue extended break this summer.
Martínez, however, ascribes the recovery to the midfielder’s attitude, and believes the boyhood Evertonian is on a personal mission to atone for the team’s performances last season.
“Football is a team sport and last season was a disappointment for all of us in the league,” the Everton manager said. “We started the league with a real feelgood factor and great expectations but, as a team, we never reached those. Now as a young player you’ve got a choice. You can say it’s the team’s fault or you can say you will change the team’s performance by improving yourself and that was the attitude of Ross, which is very rare in football.
“He openly came out and said he was not performing as well as he should do. That was the change. Last season he could have easily just put his head under and said: ‘The team is not performing well so what can I do?’
“He wasn’t happy because he wanted to enjoy his football and he couldn’t do that because as a team we were not allowing anyone to enjoy it. But he still took on the responsibility. The difference between last season and this one is down to his choice as an individual to take responsibility for what he could do to make the team better. When you have a young player with that incredible attitude, that’s when you see a difference.”
Everton face another difficult test at Swansea City on Saturday and Martínez believes his team will produce a successful campaign providing they maintain the levels of the Chelsea victory.
He said: “The performance we had against Southampton was exactly the same level that we had against Chelsea. That is what we are looking for as a team – to be consistent with our performances. In order to improve and be as good as we can, and to take advantage of the talent we have in the squad, we have to be consistent from game to game. But I feel we have started in a consistent manner.
“The draw against Spurs was only a good point if we could get a win against Chelsea and the win against Chelsea can only be a fantastic result if we follow it with a very strong performance against Swansea. That is the sort of demand we are looking for ourselves from this season. That should be a target.”
