Dinard: The song Gimme hope, Joe Allen has apparently now become the favourite one on the Wales team bus, as well as in plenty of bars and stadiums in France, about a player who is helping to not just give his country hope but also belief at Euro 2016. Allen’s arrival as an authentic cult figure is also complete. A Joe Allen Appreciation Day has become not just a weekly feature on Twitter but also the WhatsApp group for the Wales players. There is a Joe Allen Bar in Paris and a banner that is taken by Wales fans to every game reading, ‘When God made Joe Allen he was just showing off’.
A player who was once only fully valued by what might be termed the ‘football hipster’ has gone mainstream. But what does Allen himself make of it all? He looks just a bit embarrassed, although there is little doubt that his teammates are making him acutely aware. “The messages do reach us,” he said. “It cracks me up. It’s funny when you get those things as a team. It gives everyone a little boost. I don’t think it can be forced. I think it’s something very natural with us and the fans.” Of course, underpinning all of this is what has been happening out on a football pitch. The towering performances of Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey might have delivered most headlines in the 3-0 win against Russia, but it was Allen who set the rhythm from his deep-lying midfield position and it was also Allen who delivered a brilliant defence-splitting pass for the first goal. “If somebody else from another team had played that pass that he did through to Aaron Ramsey, if it was a Spanish player, it would be raved about,” said Neil Taylor, Allen’s former Swansea City teammate. “Joey is very underrated. He is making the team tick. “It’s a harsh industry but, what we do know here, in-house, is that Joe Allen is a very good football player. Like a lot of good players tend to do at tournaments, they raise their level. He warrants being at such a big club like Liverpool.”
Whether he will still be at Liverpool come the start of next season, however, remains uncertain. Allen has a year left on his contract and there is a belief that Liverpool would listen to offers above £10 million (Dh50.9 million). Swansea are interested in bringing him back to the Liberty Stadium, even if his Wales teammates believe that he is good enough to play on the biggest stages of all. “He’ll go on to do incredible things in his career,” said Gareth Bale.
“He does all the dirty work that maybe goes unnoticed. We know how vitally important he is. I can’t really speak highly enough of him; he’s amazing.”
Taylor, naturally, hopes that Swansea can complete a deal to bring Allen back to a club he first joined at the age of nine and only left in 2012, for £15 million, following Brendan Rodgers’s own move from South Wales to Merseyside. “He’s going to have everybody after him if he keeps playing like this,” said Taylor. “I’m sure Liverpool will probably try and hang on to him. We’d love to have Joey back at Swansea, of course, but I think a lot of clubs will want him.” With his long hair and beard, comparisons between Allen and Italy legend Andrea Pirlo have become inevitable. Rodgers once likened him to Xavi but, according to Taylor, such praise is not necessarily helpful. “The hardest thing for him is that he didn’t give himself those names,” he said. “That’s been the most difficult thing. I can see why people give it to him, because of the way he plays, compared to these players, but Joe is his own man. He’s Joe Allen — and he’s crucial for us.”
Bale was also dismissive of comparisons to his own teammates at Real Madrid, most obviously Luka Modric. “He’s Joe Allen,” he said. “He’s great on the ball and he puts a tackle in. I think he deserves more credit than he gets. It takes a bit of the defensive responsibility off us knowing that he’ll do such a good job. People might look at him and think he’s small but, when he’s on the pitch, he’s massive for us.”
