Everton once had a talent, and his name was Ross Barkley. He was the very embodiment of Goodison Park, a homegrown hero with quality to fit.

Barkley has led a wandering career with plenty of peaks and valleys, but his time on Merseyside will always be remembered fondly, even if he did leave to join Premier League rivals Chelsea in a deal worth £15m plus add-ons.

So began the interminable years of inconsistency and fallen expectations. The England international’s move to Stamford Bridge did not go to plan, but he left in 2022 to try his hand in France with OGC Nice, before moving back to his homeland and making quite the impression with newly-promoted Luton Town.

So began the resurgence.

Luton might have fallen straight back into the second tier last season but they gave a very good account of themselves, and Barkley was the centrepiece, even said to be “not far off player of the season” by Sky Sports pundit Paul Merson.

He started 30 Premier League fixtures for the Hatters and made quite the impression, with his metrics highlighting the robust and dynamic nature of the craft.

Indeed, as per Sofascore, Barkley averaged 1.5 tackles, 2.1 dribbles, 6.3 ball recoveries 6.1 successful duels and 1.4 key passes per game.

Looking at his performance level from another angle, the nomadic player also ranked among the top 6% of midfielders across Europe’s top five leagues over the past year for goals scored, the top 16% for assists, the top 15% for shot-creating actions and the top 2% for successful take-ons per 90, as per FBref.

Now, the 30-year-old is back at Villa Park, and this time for good. An industrious and multi-faceted midfield star, he’d be just what Sean Dyche‘s side need at present, battling as they are against relegation.

Oh, how Everton must wish they could have enticed him back to his home city, and how they must regret failing to nurture the perfect successor, with Kieran Dowell looking like the next version of Barkley at one stage.

Everton fumbled their next version of Ross Barkley

Everton have suffered their fair share of transfer mishaps over the years, but efforts were exhausted in eking out Dowell’s talents and sadly, he simply wasn’t able to bring about the requisite level for a nailed-down role in the Merseysiders’ first-team squad.

Now plying his trade for Rangers in the Scottish Premiership, the 27-year-old Dowell has enjoyed a good career; he hasn’t fallen by the wayside. Still, success at Everton was not something that he achieved, even though the attacking midfielder had once been viewed among the club’s prized talents.

Dowell joined Everton in 2005 when he was a youth seeking to go beyond that nascent level of football and realise a dream carried by incalculable children across the globe.

And he succeeded in reaching the top, breaking into Everton’s senior system and starring during pre-season preparations, learning across several loan spells designed to inculcate within him the many facets needed to become a first-class player.

Dowell actually played five competitive matches for the Toffees, though this does stand as the fewest appearances for any side that he has performed for across the duration of his career so far.

His ability to collect and turn, weave into space and rifle a strike beyond a hopeless goalkeeper had led to a measure of fanfare, with his short-term stint with Nottingham Forest across the 2017/18 campaign particularly eye-catching, as was the strike you can see just above.

This expectation was heightened – though, in hindsight, more apt wording would be ‘compounded’ – through previous claims, via talkSPORT in this instance, that Dowell was set to be Everton’s latest version of Barkley, for they operated across similar parameters and both carried dribbling prowess and excellent ball-shooting skills.

Such potential was echoed through former Tricky Trees boss Aitor Karanka, who said that he was “sure that he will be an amazing player in the future because he has everything. He is powerful, he has technique, he is a good kid.”

Indeed, Dowell’s successful stint with Forest proved to be his most productive, which is hardly beneficial when considering it was the first of four terms away with other sides.

In 2020, having stepped out of the maiden stage of his career, it was patent that Dowell was not going to find a role of any significance at Goodison Park, and so he was sold to Norwich City in a deal worth only £1.5m.

This was two-and-a-half years after Barkley had left for Chelsea, and so Dowell truly had plenty of time to prove himself worthy as the Blues home hero’s successor.

For a player who was tipped to follow Barkley and Rooney to the limelight at Everton, Dowell must look back on his time with the club ruefully. The ability was certainly there, but perhaps he was a fortune of the chequered fortunes that can breed from numerous loan spells that make it difficult at a young age to form a flowing line of consistency.

Presently, Everton await the next top-talented forward to emerge from their academy. It could have been Dowell, but ultimately, it’s one that fans will have turned their emotions away from for much time by now.