I feel asleep on the couch before the second half so I missed Barkley's performance, sounded as expected though. His willingness to get the ball and drive forward impresses the media and fans, but his ability to not release it at the right time and lose the ball worries the people in charge.
May not be a popular thing to say, but I'm behind Hodgson's playing down expectations. If our aim was to just go to this WC and play kids, attack and use it as a learning curve, then I'd be saying play Barkley in every game, let him do what he does and go out in style. But for all the media we're not expecting much, it's all about performance rather than result rhetoric, if we go down to Italy and Uruguay, regardless how gracefully, and we're out before the final game against Costa Rica, Hodgson and the players and the FA get ripped to shreds.
What people really expect and want to see is a middle ground, flashes of promise mixed with decent results and a respectable showing (quarter finals or a heroic 2nd round knockout as a bare minimum) and to do this, the most likely route is draw the first two games (playing for a tight win), win the final one against Costa Rica. To do this, we need to keep it tight in the first two games, which means Welbeck on the left and Rooney in the hole. As much as we love Barkley and I totally agree with Martinez's approach, especially for us, of letting him play his way and learn through experience, England in a once in 4 year cup competition, can't afford those same risks. If we look insipid in attack in the first two games, then I'm all behind and will actively be pushing starting Barkley against Costa Rica and going forward in the knockout rounds if it works, but against Italian and Uruguayan quality opening the world cup, the risk of playing Barkley outweighs the potential positives if your game plan is to not lose.
