Tuesday 27 December 2016 17:27, UK
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 tournament. "I think he does the dirty work that maybe goes unnoticed.
"We know how vitally important he is. In the squad we appreciate him very much. Maybe he doesn't get the headlines outside, but in the squad he gets them. He works his socks off every game and I'm sure he'll go on to do incredible things in his career."
No arguments with the first part of Bale's assessment but there must have been question marks over the conclusion. Particularly when Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, despite insisting Allen was a "wonderful player", agreed to sell him to Stoke City for £13million.
The mid-table perennials from the Potteries do not scream 'incredible' but the move could hardly have gone better. "Sometimes you're the right club at the right time for the right player, and I think that's what happened with Joe," said his new boss Mark Hughes.
Allen is still using the ball with familiar poise and he is still covering the ground in midfield. No surprises there. But what has been a shock is how he has taken to change of role, playing and thriving in advanced areas as Stoke's new number 10.
His goal against Leicester last time out was Allen's fifth Premier League goal of the season, more than he managed in the previous four seasons combined. Throw in a couple for his country and Allen has scored as many goals in his last 17 matches as in the previous 170.
His compatriot Hughes acknowledges that return has been unexpected even if Allen's quality was not. "He's not only technically a very good player, an intelligent player, he's added goals, which is a bonus because we didn't anticipate that," he said.
And yet, it is Allen's anticipation that got him the gig in the first place. "The first thing really that struck me was his anticipation of where the ball was going to land and where moves were going to be created," explained Hughes when discussing the positional change.
"He was always on the front foot anticipating where the ball was going to land. He was doing it in midfield areas and defensive areas so why not do it in attacking areas. If he can anticipate things in the box then he can get on the end of things and score goals."
Goals ingratiate and Allen is already a popular figure at his new club. Not least because he has truly "added goals" to his game rather than lost those other elements. He still ranks among the top tackling midfielders in the Premier League - it's just that he scores as well.
In fact, Allen has scored more than twice as many goals as the rest of the top 10 tackling midfielders in the country. It makes for a near unique combination of qualities and, interestingly, an ideal fit for the sort of football that Klopp likes his teams to play.
There is a reunion on Tuesday. Allen returns to Anfield with Liverpool in fine form and it would be a stretch to say he has been missed. But he can go back with his head high. He's not Xavi and he's not Pirlo. But he is Joe Allen. And finally that's proving enough to impress.
