Ross Barkley has revealed that he has been watching clips of Manchester City’s Yaya Toure and Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil on YouTube in order to improve.
The England midfielder feels he must become more unpredictable if he is to become a better player for both club and country.
Barkley explained how he didn’t feel he had the impact going forward as he had hoped for at Goodison Park last season.
The 21-year old scored just two goals and created three, despite a passing accuracy of 86.9%. Defensively he made an average 0.4 interceptions and 1 tackle per match.
In comparison Yaya Toure scored 12 goals last term and had a slightly better passing accuracy of 88.8%. He had a better interception average of 0.6% and made 0.9 tackles.
Ozil scored five and created six, with again a better passing accuracy than Barkley (88%). He had the same interception rate has the Everton youngster (0.4), but a better rate of 1.2 tackles.
The Toffees midfielder said: “If you play backwards all the time you become predictable for the players you are playing against, so sometimes I like to be unpredictable.
“When I’m receiving the ball I try to make opponents think I’m going to play backwards, they’ll then give me a few yards and I’ll get my turn on and then hopefully do what I know I can do.
“In training I always practised that, because if you can make that extra yard of space, it can push you on to break forward.
“I’ve also been watching clips on Yaya Toure and Mesut Ozil. Ozil is so calm in possession and picks the right passes, which is something I’ve got to get a bit better at. I just observe, just watch clips on YouTube and the spaces he moves into.
“With Yaya Toure, the breaks forward he does and the counter-attacks. When he gets the ball his distribution is really good too.
Personally, when I get on the pitch, I just try to put in a good performance. If I can do that then hopefully it can lift the lads around me.”
