In-form Luton midfielder Ross Barkley insists he's in a 'great place' at Kenilworth Road

Midfielder Ross Barkley believes the fact he is enjoying his football once more and in a ‘great place’ at Luton this season is allowing him to get back to playing his best football for the Hatters.

The 30-year-old originally burst on to the scene at boyhood club Everton back in 2010 as following his breakthrough year in 2013-14, earning his first England cap and ending up going to the 2014 World Cup, he went on to become a genuine star at Goodison Park, playing a career high 57 times for both club and country in the 2015-16 campaign, scoring 14 goals as well. Following 179 appearances and 27 goals for the Toffees, it saw him earn a £15m move to Chelsea in January 2018, but a hamstring injury restricted him to just four matches that term.

He was back playing a proper role the following year, with 55 games, but while at Stamford Bridge, Barkley could never fully break into the Blues side on a consistent basis as from his 58 top flight appearances, half of them were as a substitute, a trend that carried on in cup competitions, with 42 matches, 27 of them from the opening whistle. In 2020-21, he started just two games for the club, heading to Aston Villa for a loan period, while after being allowed to leave west London in June 2022 following just 14 outings, went out to France to spend last year at Ligue 1 side Nice.

Coming back to England in the summer, he was snapped up by Luton in what is now turning out to be one of the best free transfers ever completed, as putting a slow start behind him when he was initially rushed into the team after a lack of training, once given time to get fully fit, he came off the bench at Nottingham Forest to great effect in October and hasn’t looked back since. Saturday’s 4-4 draw at Newcastle which saw Barkley score his third of the season and gain a third assist as well, was the 13th Premier League contest he has begun in row for Luton, as he also played all but 14 minutes of the Town’s three FA Cup matches as well.

That has led to growing calls for him to add to his 33 England caps and earn a place in Gareth Southgate’s Euro Championships squad later this year, but for Barkley himself, he knew he had it in him to get back to the kind of form that saw him one of the most sought after players earlier in his career, saying: “I’ve always had the belief that if I’m afforded time to find my rhythm, play game after game I’ll find my best. Like most players, when you’re stop-start as a player, it’s really hard to be at your best.

"You've got to perform in training and get your chance, but for me I’m just made up to be on the pitch again as I’ve had a few years when I’ve been in and out and not been able to find consistent minutes and performances. I’m just enjoying my football and I’m in a great place now. It’s great to score goals and great to assist goals, great to just get on the ball and try and make things happen. It was a brilliant game for the fans, I’m sure at times both benches were probably nervous as we went up by two goals and then they got two goals, but we’re all positive as we just want the next game to come around. We could have done better with some of the goals, but a good game to be a part of and a lot of positives to take.”

With Barkley currently in supreme form on a personal level, it has filtered through to the rest of his team-mates as well, Luton now on a run of just one defeat in six league games, with three victories and two draws, as they have climbed out of the bottom three ahead of this weekend’s match against basement side Sheffield United. They have done so by dramatically improving their potency in front of goal, scoring eight in their last two games and now netting 22 times in 10 matches, as opposed to just 10 from their first 12 fixtures.

With Elijah Adebayo up to nine and Carlton Morris on five, Barkley believes their belief in the final third is starting to cascade throughout the team, as he added: “We’ve scored against all the top sides, scored four against Newcastle, three against Arsenal, we went ahead against Man City, went ahead against Liverpool, beat Newcastle at home, so I think teams know what they’re coming up against now. Eight in two in the league is brilliant when you think about it. We’ve got goals in the team. Early on the lads were maybe figuring it out, the forward players, but now we’re confident in front of goal, less erratic, more calm, so we’re growing and we’re all positive.”