Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy was willing to match Chelsea’s £15m offer for Ross Barkley before he joined from Everton earlier this month, according to reports.
Football.london claims that Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino wanted to sign the England international, who, in turn, wanted to play for the Argentine. Spurs failed to seal a deal for Barkley last summer before he suffered the hamstring injury that prompted him to pull out of a move to Chelsea.
Chelsea tried their hands on getting the midfielder during the summer and as per BBC, they even lodged a £25m offer, which Everton rejected. However, a deal was soon agreed upon, but the player backed out of the move, walking away from his medical.
It is reported that “something happened this month” for Pochettino to make a U-turn in his stance on Barkley, even though chairman Daniel Levy made it clear he would have allowed the club to match Chelsea’s bid and wage offer for the England international.
Pochettino is a big admirer of Barkley and had monitored his status since the summer window. But he did not make a move, owing to the steep price that Everton were demanding. Earlier this month, knowing that Barkley was attaining full fitness, Antonio Conte acted quickly and trumped us for his signature.
Well, the former Everton man’s miss was well documented in the 1-1 draw against Southampton at St.Mary’s on Sunday. In the absence of Christian Eriksen, we lacked the creative spark and the guile to cut open the Southampton defence.
Spurs conceded first and after Harry Kane equalised, we threatened very little, with Dele Alli being ineffective. Eriksen’s absence showed that we had no replacement for our sick Dane. It comes as a big surprise why our gaffer wasn’t willing to go for a January swoop for Barkley, even after Levy was ready to match Chelsea’s bid.
Barkley is yet to play this season, although he was an unused substitute for Chelsea in their 4-0 thrashing of Brighton and Hove Albion on Saturday. He is now ready for action. He would have certainly improved our squad which is filled with a lot of promising players but short on quality replacements.
Without Eriksen, our team failed to threaten the Saints for most parts of the game. Had Barkley been in our squad, he would have atleast tried out different things which our attackers couldn’t, on a rainy evening at St.Mary’s.
