Ronald Koeman gives Everton contract rebel Ross Barkley ultimatum over new deal and says he must decide BEFORE the end of the season
Barkley still hasn’t reached agreement on the new deal worth up to £100,000 a week that has been on the table for nearly a month
RONALD KOEMAN has given Ross Barkley an ultimatum over his contract stand off and insisted: I need your answer BEFORE the end of the season.
Barkley still hasn’t reached agreement on the new deal – worth up to £100,000 a week – that has been on the table for nearly a month.
Koeman admitted last week that he will sell the Everton midfielder rather than risk letting him run down the final year of his contract and then leaving for free.
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Now he has set a definitive time limit on a decision and warned: “We need to know before the end of the season.
“I do feel (everything is being done to keep him), and we will offer what’s normal for the player and the way he’s improving.
“He’s going in the right direction - he’s kid of the club, kid of the town and in my opinion there’s no better place for him than Everton.
“I spoke to him several weeks ago, and he mentioned his ambition is the Champions League but I told him I have the same.
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“It’s a normal ambition for a player – if you asked them one by one they’d all say they wanted to play in the Champions League.”
Koeman’s warning came five days after Barkley was floored in a Liverpool cocktail, as he celebrated Sunday’s 4-2 win over Leicester.
The Toffees star was decked by a punch from an “unknown stranger” but suffered no serious injury and was not punished by Everton as he had broken no club rules.
Yet Koeman admitted: “It’s not good because it’s not what you like to read about your players.
“Maybe now he realises it’s not the best place to be, maybe the wrong time, wrong place with crazy people like that.
“It’s difficult because when you’re young it’s not about experience, you’ve played, you’ve won, and you go out, and that’s no problem to me.
“He didn’t drink, he was driving his car but when you meet people like that it can happen. Maybe that’s the reason I live outside the town.
“But people always learn from incidents that happen and it’s good if you do.”