Ross Barkley saga explained: Why Tottenham Hotspur are the biggest winners of his failed deal

It's no secret that Tottenham wanted to sign the England midfielder, Ross Barkley, for a very long time. It's no secret either that Spurs' London rivals, Chelsea, were also interested to sign the young player. They (Chelsea) nearly succeeded before Barkley changed his mind suddenly and left without completing the deal.

What happened? Why did Barkley leave after completing his medical with Chelsea? Here is how the whole saga panned out.

Spurs interest

Again, Spurs were extremely interested in signing Barkley and Mauricio Pochettino had made him his number one target. Pochettino thought of the England international as a successor of Mousa Dembele. It was obvious that the Spurs manager was a great admirer of Barkley and the 23-year-old even reciprocated his feelings and wanted to play under the Argentinian manager.

With only a year remaining on Barkley's contract, Everton offered him a new one where he would earn £120k a week, which he outrightly rejected. This left Koeman with only one choice, sell him before his contract expires- but at a decent price.

Pochettino is a huge admirer of Barkley

Everton valued Ross Barkley at £50 million, a price that Daniel Levy, Spurs chairman, didn't want to pay for a player who had only one year left on his contract. To make matters worse for Everton, Barkley after returning from a two-week long groin injury, injured himself again and this time, he was out for a lengthy six-month spell on the sidelines. Spurs even went into negotiation with Barkley's representatives to discuss personal terms, which after some initial hiccups were sorted out, but Everton still wouldn't budge on the Barkley's valuation which prompted Spurs to come back later for the 23-year old midfielder.

Deadline Day drama

Everton had spent a massive £150m during the summer and were now desperate to offload Barkley and even lowered their initial asking price to £35m which prompted Chelsea, who missed a lot of their targets, to take an action. They bid the asking price for the midfielder which in turn prompted Spurs to come back into the negotiations.

Everton were now reluctant to sell the player to Spurs due to their frustrations over the previous negotiations and with Chelsea ready to offer the sum asked, the Merseyside club didn't need to look towards Spurs.

Conte was interested in signing Barkley

This made Spurs shift their attention towards the Barcelona midfielder, Ander Gomes. But there were complications with that deal too. Barcelona wanted to loan the player to Spurs with an obligation to buy the player if he plays more than 60% of their games in the season. With very less time remaining the negotiations turned futile and Barcelona even backed out of the deal after failing to get their targets such as Seri and Coutinho as they didn't want to lose a squad player.

Meanwhile, Chelsea had a bid accepted for Barkley and initially, the player was even ready to move to the blue half of London, but soon the talks broke down as the Liverpool-born player changed his mind at the last moment and left after his medical at the Bridge.

It is suggested that Barkley had done this to retaliate against Everton who were forcing his move to Chelsea and rejecting any bid from Spurs.

What could happen next?

There are three ways that this saga could end.

The first and the unlikely one is that Barkley would move to Chelsea in the January transfer window. This is highly unlikely because even though Chelsea want to increase the number of English players in their squad, they would not want a player who rejected them in such a humiliating way.

The second way is Barkley signs a new contract with Everton. But this is also highly unlikely as Barkley has made up his mind about leaving the club as he rejected a £120k-a-week contract.

Where would Barkley be after January?

The third way this could saga could end is, Spurs signing Barkley in the winter transfer window, which right now looks highly likely. It is quite obvious now that the player wants a move to Spurs who are equally interested in signing him, albeit at the right price.

Everton's majority stake holder Farhad Moshir stated, "He wanted to reconsider his position during the January transfer window, He is currently injured. So I think it is a big surprise, but that is football."

There have been a lot of twists and turns in this prolonged saga, but only time will tell how this one will end.