Everton midfielder Ross Barkley looks set to leave this summer.
Cardiff City boss Neil Warnock has told talkSPORT that he thinks Ross Barkley would be a ‘superb’ signing for Tottenham Hotspur this summer.
Barkley, 23, has come up through the ranks at Goodison Park, and he has become a key first-team player over the last four years, and he has now made almost 200 appearances for the club.
With five goals and eight assists last season, Barkley enjoyed a decent campaign under Ronald Koeman – but he now looks set to leave Goodison Park this summer.
Everton’s Ross Barkley celebrates scoring
Barkley’s contract expires at the end of next season, meaning that he could walk away for nothing in 2018, and Everton may prefer to sell him on this summer whilst they still can.
A number of clubs have been linked with moves to sign Barkley, and on Wednesday night, The Sun reported that Tottenham Hotspur are very interested – but won’t pay the £50million Everton want.
That leaves Barkley in limbo ahead of the new Premier League season, but one of his former managers has backed him to make a real impact if he does join Tottenham and Mauricio Pochettino.
Cardiff City boss Neil Warnock, who managed Barkley at Leeds, has told talkSPORT that he thinks Barkley would be ‘super’ for Tottenham, and he must play under ‘a certain manager’ to fulfil his potential.
Cardiff manager Neil Warnock
Warnock noted that it’s hard to fit Barkley into a system and trust him to do the defensive side of the game, and whilst Koeman may not be the manager that tolerates that, Pochettino could.
“I had Ross at Leeds, and he’s an unbelievably good pro. He comes in first thing and he takes free kicks until it goes dark, he trains all the time,” said Warnock. “But as a manager you can’t really find a system you can trust him in. It’s a really difficult with him, because he still loves to turn and take players on in his own half and often loses it. He hasn’t got the responsibility in his make-up regarding as and when to do it, he just does it when he feels like it. I don’t think you can change him in that.”
“I think he’d be a super player for a club like Spurs. I think he could be a top five player…but for a certain manager. It’ll be a difficult one for the manager who gets him, in how to play him at that level with the responsibility you have to have when you play the top teams. You have to have that discipline in your game and unfortunately Ross doesn’t have that, but he makes up for it by scoring unbelievable goals. But I don’t think Koeman has ever been that type of manager who can tolerate somebody who is that ill-disciplined in certain aspects,” he added.
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