Though Mark Hughes can call upon specialist left backs Sylvinho and Javier Garrido as ready-made replacements for the injured Wayne Bridge or even ask Joleon Lescott to shift across from the middle, Barry will fill the gap if his manager asks him to.
“It’s a position I’ve played in before and have actually played left-back for England when Kevin Keegan was in charge,” he said.
“It’s all about doing a job for the team, which is part of my game and I’d be more than happy to fill in if asked, but there are other left-backs at the club as well.”
After seven successive draws, Barry admits the team are relieved to have returned to winning ways and can continue the mix of silk and steel for the remainder of the season, starting with Bolton this weekend.
“I think the Arsenal game was a big platform for us to build on and gave us a lot of confidence,” he said.
“ The way we worked for each other in that game was something the manager was keen for us to take into the Chelsea match, because that probably was our best way of beating them. He wanted us to get into their faces, match the work rate we showed against Arsenal and that’s exactly what we did.
“We beat the best team in the league at the moment and didn’t allow them to play or really create too many chances.
It’s a result-orientated business and the atmosphere around the club lifts because you’re on a winning run
...Gareth Barry
“We know the game against Bolton is just as important as the two before it and we need to win games like this as well. Mentally, we have to be strong to adapt to whoever we are playing. It will be a totally different kind of game and it’s perhaps the type of match where we’ve let ourselves down a bit this season, dropping points against teams we should be picking them up against.
“There are no excuses, the confidence is high and if we put the same work-rate in against Chelsea and Arsenal, hopefully we can let the quality players we have at the other end of the pitch go and win the game for us.”
