Luton boss praises Ross Barkley's reaction to being a 'pantomime villain' on Goodison Park return

Luton boss Rob Edwards felt that midfielder Ross Barkley reacted impressively to being the ‘pantomime villain’ during Saturday’s return to his former club Everton in the FA Cup fourth round.

The 30-year-old Liverpudlian began his career in the academy at Goodison Park, making his debut as a 17-year-old in 2011, spending 14 years in total at his boyhood club, making 179 appearances and scoring 27 goals, also earning a first England call, before moving to Chelsea in 2018 for a fee of £15m. His transfer was deeply unpopular with the Toffees supporters at the time, as Barkley went on to play for Aston Villa and French side Nice before moving to Luton this summer, where he has starred since.

Making his third return to where it all began, although the first since May 2019 with supporters present due to Covid, it was clear home fans still haven’t forgiven him for leaving, Barkley’s name booed when read out ahead of kick-off. He saw every touch jeered, with great cheers from the stands when he sent a shot over the top, or misplaced a pass, with further abuse raining down when he was substituted with 14 minutes to go.

While another ex-Toffee Andros Townsend had a whole different experience, welcomed by the PA announcer and then given an excellent ovation from all corners of the ground when replaced midway through the second period, on how Barkley handled the atmosphere, Edwards said: “Ross dealt with it really well, it's football, we're in the entertainment business and sometimes in football there's a bit of a pantomime villain.

"But this is Ross's club, he’s from here, brought up here, played for this football club. He does love this club, so I'm not going to go into the past, but I thought he dealt with it really, really well.”

Writing on Instagram afterwards, the midfielder said: “Good to be back where it all began today. Onto the next round… #UTH.”

Barkley was starting his 14th game in a row for the Hatters as Edwards went with a full strength side once more for the tie, with just Gabe Osho and Jordan Clark missing from a team that could well start against Brighton & Hove Albion in the Premier League on Tuesday night. Playing a weakened XI was never something the boss, who saw Town win at Goodison Park for the second time this term, considered either, as he continued: "We're playing against Everton, we're at Goodison Park, we were always going to play a strong team, a team that we thought could win the game, that was never in doubt.

“We want to keep momentum, we want to try and keep improving, keep getting better and I think you can see in our performances that we're doing that. I wasn’t happy with every bit today, I thought we were sloppy in moments, but to come here, have more of the ball, more shots, score more goals than them, it's a little bit of a different performance to the last time we were here.”

Town’s victory also came when Barkley and co had been away for a few days in Dubai for a warm weather training camp following the 2-1 third round replay victory over Bolton Wanderers. Asked if he felt it had benefited the squad in the build-up, Edwards added: “I don’t know, time will tell on that. It will give us good confidence and belief and that's all I really care about.

"I thought we got the balance right out there, we rested, it was a winter break and we got some really good training in the back end of the week. We haven’t picked up any injuries, we’ve got a couple of lads who will come back into Tuesday's squad as well, we could have been a little bit stronger today, like they could as well, I know they were missing a few people.

"Last week was great, but it was a real focus building up in to this game. We knew it was a real big chance for us to progress, a difficult place to come, but an opportunity for us to to keep improving. I keep talking about that now, the lads are improving in every game, so that's what makes me excited.

"I think you can see there’s a real belief in this group of players. You can see that it doesn’t matter who we're playing and where we're at, we’ll give it absolutely everything. We'll try to give everyone a game, it doesn’t mean we're going to win every one, doesn’t mean we're going to draw, but we’ll give it everything and really see it and believe in it. I think we’re playing well, we’re actually performing really well, we’re looking like a different team that’s growing and getting better all the time.”