Roy Hodgson has indicated that Ross Barkley is still not assured of a place in the starting XI when England embark on their series of high-end friendlies next month and challenged the team’s man of the moment to continue taking on board the advice from his coaches.
Having qualified for Euro 2016 with an immaculate record of 10 straight wins, England will begin their preparations for the tournament by playing against Spain in Alicante on 13 November, followed by France’s visit to Wembley four days later, and Hodgson is planning to field his strongest possible team on both occasions.
The games give him an opportunity to test Barkley against a higher level of opposition after his impressive performances against Lithuania and, in particular, Estonia but Hodgson mixed his praise for the midfielder by saying that he was still not guaranteed a slot in the team, urging him to maintain his current form.
Asked whether it was important to see how Barkley would fare against two of Europe’s stronger football nations, Hodgson said: “No, I don’t think so, he will play if I feel he is deserving of a place in what I consider to be our best team because I will be picking teams to play against Spain and France that I consider to be the best 11 of the moment.
“There’s a lot of football between now and then and we follow all our players very closely. There will be lots of reports and lots of sightings. Ross will have to continue doing well for Everton and continue to show that this is a player that deserves to be one of the first names on the England team-sheet, like he has shown he is one of the first names on Everton team-sheet. So it’s entirely up to him.
“He has certainly not done his cause any harm. All you can do when you are given a chance to play for England is to go out against whoever that opponent may be and do it very well. And if you do that, you get yourself in the forefront of the manager’s mind.”
Hodgson has spoken in the past about Barkley, for all his outstanding ability, needing to improve his decision-making on the pitch. He thinks the 21-year-old is best as an attacking midfielder rather than operating slightly further forward, in the classic No10 role he fills for Everton, and has been greatly encouraged by Barkley’s increasingly influential performances for the Goodison Park club. “I think it is all down to the fact that he plays every game and he is starting to feel his place on the team-sheet is more guaranteed than maybe it has been in previous years,” said Hodgson. “He realises how much faith his team-mates, his manager and everyone at the club has in him and, of course, he has worked hard at his game.
“He has taken on board all of the advice he is given from his manager and coaching staff and, when he comes to England, the work we try to do with him. Basically, he is aligning that coaching advice to his enormous talent and we are seeing the benefit of it. He is not always going to score spectacular goals and dribble past people as if they are not there, and against better opposition he will find that harder as well. But I think he is balancing his decision-making in a way that we think is very, very good and I am sure Roberto Martínez agrees with me.”
As well as the Spain and France games, England have also lined up a trip to Berlin to play Germany on 26 March and are finalising a game against Holland for the same month. “I think the March friendlies will be more important than the November ones, not least because we might have a few players back by then and the team might look more like the team I would have in my head for the tournament,” Hodgson said.
The England manager knows there is a danger of the team losing their winning momentum in these friendlies, thinking back to the defeats against Germany and Chile before the last World Cup.
“We will have to accept that. If you want to guarantee momentum, you don’t play Spain away, you don’t play France, you don’t play Germany away. You play teams you feel you are quite capable of beating and then you get a pat on the back for going a bit further.
“But we don’t want that. I don’t see it as a risk at all. The worst that can happen is we lose the games. The very worst that can happen is we lose them playing very badly and if that was to happen – and I don’t believe it will – it would be an important lesson for us and there would be important things to know going forward.”
