Euro 2016: Joe Allen's star is rising with Wales despite uncertain future at Liverpool

The midfielder is expected to leave Anfield this summer and, given his current form, there should be plenty of suitors

Allen has been one of the tournament's stand-out midfielders so far (Getty)

It feels a long time ago now but Russia were throwing everything at Wales for the first 10 minutes of their group game in Toulouse on Monday night. Wales might have wilted but when Joe Allen received a loose ball in the centre circle he was calm enough and clever enough to set them on their way to Welsh football’s greatest night.

Allen turned into space, looked up, and weighted a forward pass. The ball rolled through a big gap between two Russian midfielders and then a much smaller gap between two Russian defenders, perfectly meeting Ramsey’s inside run. The Arsenal man controlled the ball, chipped it over Igor Akinfeev and Wales were away.

That win meant Wales finished on top of Group B which is why they are playing Northern Ireland in the last-16 in Paris on Saturday, instead of Iceland in Nice on Monday night.

No-one can discount Gareth Bale’s decisive power, or Aaron Ramsey’s incision, or Chris Coleman’s management, or Ashley Williams’ leadership, or performance psychologist Dr Ian Mitchell, or any other part of this great group. But at the heart of their play, in the middle of the pitch, it is all about the shy boy from Narberth and what he can do with ball.

That is why Neil Taylor, his great friend, team-mate and room-mate, spoke with such admiration this week about Allen and that pass.

“If somebody else from another team, a Spanish player or someone like that, had played that pass that he did through to Aaron Ramsey then it would be raved about,” said Taylor, with genuine enthusiasm. “And I know has been raved about here, about Joe with how well he’s done. But Joey is very underrated.”

In terms of wider profile Allen is very much third here behind Bale and Ramsey, but the feeling inside the camp is that he is as important as anyone in this team. Sitting alongside Joe Ledley in the heart of Coleman’s 3-4-3 system he keeps the ball, creates chances and directs the whole play of the team. He was the best midfielder on the pitch in the wins against Slovakia and Russia and will be so again at the Parc des Princes tomorrow.

To hear Taylor and Gareth Bale speak about Allen this week was to get a sense of the extremely high regard he is held in by his team-mates. Not just because he is a disarmingly gentle polite amiable person, although that does count for a lot, but because his delicate engine-room work that he does for the good of the team.

“I can’t speak highly enough of him, he’s been incredible,” Gareth Bale said last night. “He does the dirty work that goes unnoticed. We know how vitally important he is, and how amazing he has played. Maybe he doesn’t get the headlines outside, but in the squad he gets them.”

Allen celebrating Taylor's goal against Russia on Monday (Getty)

Both Bale and Taylor spoke along very similar lines about Allen, underlining the sense that this Wales squad speaks with one voice. And that voice has been singing Allen’s praises all week.

“He is one of those players in your team that keep things ticking, that is obvious for people to see,” Taylor said. “If you’ve watched the games, you can see it. When I’m playing I can feel it. He is making the team tick and that’s what a good central midfield player does.”

So far this tournament Allen has brought in his good form from the second half of the Liverpool season, arguably his best spell since leaving Swansea City for Anfield four years ago. He is a player who has always faced too many questions about his ability and his influence and it is only now that he is making clear that he does belong at the top level.

“Whenever he plays for Wales, and whenever I’ve seen him play for Liverpool he has been amazing,” Bale said. “He plays with his heart, he’s really strong and he always stands up to the task. People might look at him and think he’s small, but when he’s on the pitch he is massive for us.”

Again, Taylor made the same point, that Allen at 26 years old is now playing better than ever, as important to Liverpool now as he has been for Wales for years.

“What we know here, in-house, is that Joe Allen is a very good football player, and he warrants being at such a big football club like Liverpool,” Taylor said. “His performances are showing that now. We are very happy for him that he is showing it on this stage. A lot of players tend to raise their level at tournaments, and Joe has definitely done that. He is a massive player for us.”

And yet despite all of this, despite his career-best form and a starring role on the world stage, Allen’s club future is far from certain. He only has one year left on his Liverpool contract and, having not played as much at Anfield as he had hoped to, he is reluctant to sign a new one. Even though he played well for Klopp last season, it was primarily in Europe, rather than in the Premier League. He only started eight league games last year. In his first season he started 21.

There was interest in Allen from Stoke City, Leicester City and Southampton in January and had Liverpool not faced their own injury crisis Allen may well have gone. This summer Stoke are still keen while there is always the prospect of a return to Swansea, the club where he grew up and played for four first-team seasons before leaving for £15million in 2012. Klopp would like to keep Allen as a squad player but he does not want to stay on those terms and so a parting is likely. If Liverpool were to receive an offer in excess of £10m they would surely sell.

Taylor and Allen have been playing together for years, for Wales age-group teams, for Swansea and now for the senior national side. Taylor stayed at Swansea while Allen moved on but he would now love his mate to come back to join him next season.

“Joey is going to have everybody after him if he keeps playing like this,” Taylor said. “God knows, we’d love to have Joey back at Swansea, of course. But I think the fact of the matter is a lot of clubs will want him. We would want any top-class player at Swansea and he’s one of them.”

Allen is very close to his family in west Wales and a return to Swansea would always be an option. But he is performing so well this month, at the European Championship, that he still looks like a player who could play at whatever level he wanted.

“Joey is going to have everybody after him if he keeps playing like this,” said Taylor, and he is right. Gareth Bale predicted that Allen would go on “to do incredible things in his career.” Allen, like Bale, and the rest, is doing incredible things now.