Ross Barkley exclusive: I fell in love with football again at Luton - and still want to play in Europe

This time last year Ross Barkley was spending his time watching his Nice team-mates from the substitutes' bench.

Barkley, who made his Premier League debut for Everton aged 17 and had earned an England call-up before he turned 20, had featured just nine times for the French side he'd joined having been released early from his Chelsea contract.

It wasn't the first time in his career he'd found himself here. The midfielder was falling off the footballing radar. But one phone call late last summer changed all that.

Less than 12 months on, Barkley has become the heartbeat of Rob Edwards' Luton team - the driving force. It's not too far to suggest Luton may have saved him.

That is why he is so intent on doing everything he can to repay the Hatters and keep them up this season, with the next test the small matter of Manchester City this weekend.

It must have been some call from Rob Edwards to get him to join, I suggest. "I've never really spoken to a manager the way he spoke to me," he tells Sky Sports. "I knew straight away. He was just so positive. He said, 'Just come, I want you to show how good you are, get back to your Everton days and help us stay in the league.'

"The club hadn't spent that much, so he said he wanted to bring in a player of my quality. I could hear in the tone of the way he was speaking, he was so excited. I said I wanted to join straight away."

Throughout his time in France following that unceremonious exit at Chelsea, a loan spell at Aston Villa before that and an injury-plagued final season at Everton, Barkley never doubted he would be back where he wanted to be - in the Premier League, running the show from the middle of the park.

He just needed someone else to believe him. That was Edwards.

Barkley has