Maurizio Sarri back Ross Barkley for England call-up this month

Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri feels Ross Barkley deserves a call-up to the England national side after impressing for the Blues during the opening stages of the campaign. The attacker joined the Blues from Everton during the 2018 winter transfer window but was restricted to just three appearances as he struggled to prove his fitness after a niggling hamstring problem.

However, with the new campaign, Barkley has managed to recovercompletelyfrom that issue and based on his performances, Sarri believes the midfielder should earn a comeback with the Three Lions, he said: “I think he can return to the national team. He is improving week by week. I think that he can improve more, because he has the potential to. He has played more than last season in two months. He had a very serious injury one year ago, I think, so he can improve from the tactical point of view and from the physical point of view.”

Barkley has already featured in six of the club’s seven Premier League games this campaign but out of those, only two of them have come from the starting line-up. Nonetheless, he has impressed with his workrate and distribution whenever he has been called into action and this is something which may capture the eye of Gareth Southgate, who has recently talked up the lack of creativity when it comes to the midfield players.

Aside from Barkley, Ruben Loftus-Cheek is another who should reclaim his place in the national team after being part of the squad at the summer World Cup. Unlike Barkley, Loftus-Cheek has found gametime hard to come by under the tutelage of Sarri but Southgate has nevertheless backed him after turning out with appreciable performances in the Three Lions shirt. Loftus-Cheek has managed just two substitute appearances in the Premier League which have earned him under 50 minutes of playing time.