Credit: Imago

James Barker

Mon 4 May 2026 10:10, UK

Ross Barkley has now surely seen his long-term Aston Villa prospects vanish after his performance against Tottenham.

Sunday night is one that everyone connected with Aston Villa will want to forget in a hurry.

However, the Villa Park faithful certainly won’t let Unai Emery and his players get away with simply chalking it down as a game they could afford to sacrifice.

Fans gave up their time and hard-earned cash to go and watch that ‘performance’, which for a side that hasn’t made certain of their Champions League qualification yet either, was fairly unforgivable.

Villa’s 2-1 defeat to Tottenham saw precious few Villans players emerge from it with any sort of credit, and Barkley wasn’t one of them.

How poor was Ross Barkley in Aston Villa vs Tottenham?

Barkley wasn’t able to play against Nottingham Forest due to his omission from Villa’s Europa League squad list.

As such, there were no excuses available to him regarding fatigue levels for Sunday’s game against Tottenham, and given he’s not a cemented starter, this was a big opportunity for him to make more of an impression on Emery.

However, the impression he is sure to have given his manager is that he’s not a viable starting player in B6 moving forward.

The 32-year-old midfielder played 85 minutes against Tottenham, in which he picked up a yellow card before being replaced by Emi Buendia, who netted Villa’s consolation goal with a fine header.

As per FotMob, Barkley took just 35 touches all game, and failed to win any of his nine ground duels as well as being unable to make a single tackle.

He also completed zero dribbles, had no shots on goal, didn’t contest a single aerial duel, committed three fouls and gave the ball away five times.

On top of that, Barkley played only four passes into the final third, creating one chance with an overall passing accuracy of 83 per cent.

In short, the veteran attacking midfielder was almost totally anonymous against Spurs, failing to contribute at either end of the pitch.

Villa will surely try and move Barkley on this summer

Contracted with Aston Villa until the summer of 2027, Villa Park chiefs may find themselves in with a significant challenge to drum up enough interest to be able to move Barkley on this summer.

Especially after his showing against Tottenham, as surely any interested clubs will now be having second thoughts if they watched that game.

Regardless, his recent performances have been a major cause for concern, and if Villa are serious about kicking on to become a perennial contender in the Premier League and in Europe, Emery needs better squad depth.

If it wasn’t already, then that became abundantly clear to all on Sunday, with none of the fringe players that were brought into the side made much of a case to be in the regular starting lineup.

So, Barkley has now surely put himself on the chopping block this summer after his Tottenham offering, the question is, who might be willing to take a chance on him after that?