‘He wasn’t happy’ – PL star makes admission after Everton summer exit
By Abigail Withey
Former Everton midfielder Gareth Barry has admitted that he didn’t feel like he was “close enough to the action” at Goodison Park which led to his move away from Merseyside.
The 36-year-old defensive midfielder packed up after three years with the Blues during the summer to move to fellow Premier League club West Bromwich Albion.
The former England international has revealed that ex-boss Ronald Koeman was incredibly keen for him to stay at the club and wasn’t best pleased with his transfer to The Hawthorns.
“He (Koeman) wasn’t happy with me, he wanted me to stay around and felt I was going to get enough game time which I possibly might have done with European football and the cups,” Barry said, as quoted by the Liverpool Echo.
“But for me running out on a Saturday afternoon in the Premier League is what I’ve always enjoyed doing and I just didn’t feel I was going to be close enough to the action at Everton.
“It might be harder at West Brom but I didn’t want to slowly go down that road of fizzling out.
“I could have still achieved this record and would have still got enough appearances at Everton, they even offered me another year but that wasn’t the reason. I wanted one last challenge.”
The West Brom star is set to become a record appearance holder at the Emirates against Arsenal on Monday night as he overtakes Ryan Giggs to make his 633rd appearance in the Premier League.
While at Everton, Barry made a total of 155 appearances across all competitions for the club where he scored just five goals and provided 12 assists.
Since making the move to the Midlands outfit, the soon-to-be record holder has started four matches under Tony Pulis against the likes of Burnley, Stoke City, Brighton and West Ham.
Everton have had a less than successful run in the top flight so far after suffering three successive defeats to Tottenham, Chelsea and Manchester United over previous weeks.
In other Everton news, a manager was glad that this 23-year-old wasn’t playing for the Toffees in midweek.
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