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Allen’s Anfield return
- Updated: December 22, 2016
Stoke’s Joe Allen is now getting the credit he deserves ahead of his return to Liverpool, writes Adam Bate.
Xavi Hernandez and Andrea Pirlo. Champions League winners. World Cup winners. For a lad from Narberth in Pembrokeshire, the comparison must have always felt loaded. The Welsh Xavi. The Welsh Pirlo. Over the years, it has been a little too fashionable to mock Joe Allen.
It was Brendan Rodgers who made the Xavi connection. Allen’s coach at both Swansea and Liverpool does a nice line in fulsome praise but self-awareness is not his most conspicuous of traits and the association has done the player few favours.
But while Allen does not rank among the greatest midfielders of his generation, there is more than a little wiggle room between legend and loser. Neither genius nor fraud, the 26-year-old occupies the acreage in between – residing nearer to the former than the latter.
In short, Allen is under-rated.
His international team-mate Neil Taylor said as much in the summer and with good reason. Allen proved his worth at Euro 2016, making more interceptions than any other midfielder in France and greasing the wheels of the Wales machine as they reached the semi-finals.
His use of the ball was impressive throughout and one spectacular pass for Aaron Ramsey’s goal against Russia was rather better than mere tidy. And yet when his name was included in the team of the tournament, some still seemed bemused. It’s only Joe Allen.
Gareth Bale does not doubt his colleague’s credentials and sums up Allen’s status well. “I can’t really speak highly enough of him,” he said during that …
