Harvey Barnes

[Andy84]

When he cuts in on that right you know what he’s going to do but not much to stop it.  He’s a brilliant finisher 

[Ikon]

There is zero chance that Gordon wants to play anywhere but LW long term. I’m sure he ia ok with the odd game at RW. It’s his favourite position and where he wants to play and where he is at his best. He knows that when it comes to England there’s a spot out on the left that is there for the taking and that’s what he wants and probably will get in the near future. I also wouldn’t put him anywhere but left personally. I don’t care if it means Barnes on the bench. Good impact sub if we are looking for a goal. I also don’t like Barnes when it comes to his general play. Yes he will score goals but I also think we won’t be as good on the whole as a team with him in.  There’s more to football than one player scoring goals. Especially if we want to go to the next level. I’m happy with him as a quality squad player. 

 

 

Edited 8 hours ago by Ikon

[huss9]

27 minutes ago, Whitley mag said:

Overall game is atrocious but nice goal and finish yesterday.

 

wow. clearly not true.

 

[OpenC]

Atrocious come on man

[Solitude20]

2 hours ago, Ikon said:

Going to say it, you’re wrong mate  He’s a more clinical finisher but apart from that Gordon’s a much much better player overall. 

If Gordon could strike a ball like Barnes, he would be a world-class winger. Finishing is the only part of his game that needs some improvement. I don’t mean it’s bad, but he would be on another level as a winger if he could score more goals. 

[Ikon]

Just now, Solitude20 said:

If Gordon could strike a ball like Barnes, he would be a world-class winger. Finishing is the only part of his game that needs some improvement. I don’t mean it’s bad, but he would be on another level as a winger if he could score more goals. 

Aye, but he gets better and better and will continue to do so. He has the natural ability to improve even further. ASM for example just didn’t have that natural ability when it came to hitting a ball cleanly. 

[junkhead]

Barnes will be a useful option but he must improve his work rate.. and athleticism, if possible. Just a notch. Often it's like he's a second late in the dribble, a cm away from executing the turn etc.. small margins.. Think he'd improve on those things with more regular football. Feels like his 'cut-inside and shoot' will always cause problems if teams leave spaces..

 

Don't think his style is suited to the right wing.. to the point I'm worried he might attack our goal if we move him there...I imagine Eddie would prefer to see the improvement on the training ground first and then consider moving Gordon.

[timeEd32]

Better than Gordon to overall game is atrocious. Covering a lot of ground today.

[Holloway]

this Gordon on the right patter, nowt more than a pest there imo, leave him be. Barnes just isn't as good a player, solid enough but I doubt he nails down a starting place in our set up

[Whitley mag]

2 hours ago, huss9 said:

 

wow. clearly not true.

 

Seen him at Hull where he could barely control the ball and take it with him, last season away to Blackburn couldn’t pass to a teammate, jury out for me there’s a reason Leicester dropped him away from home in the relegation run in.

 

Might be harsh and hopefully I’ll eat my words, but don’t think so he’ll be a 20 minute impact sub at best.

[Shak]

This is only really a discussion because we've neglected the RW position so long and the two current options we have there are both probably not good enough to be backups for a team with aspirations of pushing on and becoming one of the top sides in the country, never mind being a starter.

 

Frankly, with the intensity and work rate our style of football demands from the front three, Gordon being first choice and Barnes being an impact sub who can also start plenty of games to rest Gordon is exactly where I hope we'll be this time next season with European football to be taken into account.

[huss9]

10 minutes ago, Whitley mag said:

Seen him at Hull where he could barely control the ball and take it with him, last season away to Blackburn couldn’t pass to a teammate, jury out for me there’s a reason Leicester dropped him away from home in the relegation run in.

 

Might be harsh and hopefully I’ll eat my words, but don’t think so he’ll be a 20 minute impact sub at best.

so you base it on his two worst games for us, of which only one was a competetive game where he wasnt even the worst player.

hull away ffs.

what about all the other games?

you could pick a pre-season friendly and an away cup game for any player and say thet were atrocious.

 

[Menace]

Never in a million years better than Gordon. I think he's a good player but I think hes quite limited in what his best attributes actually are. Still he would get you 15+ G/A a season and that's considered top 4 worthy so...

[Gawalls]

21 minutes ago, Whitley mag said:

Seen him at Hull where he could barely control the ball and take it with him, last season away to Blackburn couldn’t pass to a teammate, jury out for me there’s a reason Leicester dropped him away from home in the relegation run in.

 

Might be harsh and hopefully I’ll eat my words, but don’t think so he’ll be a 20 minute impact sub at best.

Talk about cherry picking - there’s also a reason they consistently picked him every season before that when they were consistently in top half upwards. I live in Loughborough, my wife and her four brothers are all big Leicester supporters and there’s a reason they were gutted when we bought him.

[Optimistic Nut]

Gordon is a better dribbler and crosser which is why I think he'd be great on the right. He'd still score goals the same way Murphy has been in pre-season as he's a far better player than him. 

 

Barnes can do what Gordon does in terms of cutting in and scoring, plus his little passes around the box in tight spaces are far better than I thought and expected when he was at Leicester. He's also excellent at the early ball to release the striker in behind the defence, which we knew about already. 

[Elliottman]

Thought Barnes has a pretty poor game overall yesterday, nothing seem to come off for him other than his goal which was clinical. Scores goals mind, knows where the back of the net is for sure. 

[BergenMagpie]

2 hours ago, Optimistic Nut said:

Gordon is a better dribbler and crosser which is why I think he'd be great on the right. He'd still score goals the same way Murphy has been in pre-season as he's a far better player than him. 

 

Barnes can do what Gordon does in terms of cutting in and scoring, plus his little passes around the box in tight spaces are far better than I thought and expected when he was at Leicester. He's also excellent at the early ball to release the striker in behind the defence, which we knew about already. 

I'd rather see us trying Barnes on the right. He's not that good of a dribbler so he could do the Murphy role pretty well. He's also got a good left weak foot (as he showed vs Luton) if he wants to cut in and shoot

[Aiston]

Barnes on the right takes everything good out of his game.

[Conjo]

With two quality left wingers and Wilson always injured, at least the the people who constantly wants to shoehorn players into positions they aren't natural in have moved away from wanting to play Isak on the wing with Wilson up top.

 

However, the Gordon on the right brigade will become really boring really fast. 

 

Are you the same people who wanted Colo & Schar to play in midfield? Or wanted Livramento and/or Trippier on the left back position?

 

Crazy talk.

[Rod]

5 hours ago, junkhead said:

Barnes will be a useful option but he must improve his work rate.. and athleticism, if possible. Just a notch. Often it's like he's a second late in the dribble, a cm away from executing the turn etc.. small margins.. Think he'd improve on those things with more regular football. Feels like his 'cut-inside and shoot' will always cause problems if teams leave spaces..

 

Don't think his style is suited to the right wing.. to the point I'm worried he might attack our goal if we move him there...I imagine Eddie would prefer to see the improvement on the training ground first and then consider moving Gordon.

Good observations.  👍

[Shearergol]

3 hours ago, huss9 said:

so you base it on his two worst games for us, of which only one was a competetive game where he wasnt even the worst player.

hull away ffs.

what about all the other games?

you could pick a pre-season friendly and an away cup game for any player and say thet were atrocious.

 

Just ignore him man, makes your NO experience much better 

[Whitley mag]

5 hours ago, Gawalls said:

Talk about cherry picking - there’s also a reason they consistently picked him every season before that when they were consistently in top half upwards. I live in Loughborough, my wife and her four brothers are all big Leicester supporters and there’s a reason they were gutted when we bought him.

Leicester fan views on Barnes when he left not dissimilar to my own and pretty much sums it up for me -

 

Going into the 2019/20 campaign, I was so convinced that Barnes was a phenom-in-waiting that I bet a Liverpool-supporting friend of mine he would outscore every one of their non-Salah players that season.

Sadio Mane went on to score 18 times, while Barnes had managed to rouse himself into one goal before the New Year.

All of which is to say that he never quite lived up to my expectations. Some people might say I was duped by the sexy hexagons of the StatsBomb radars that told me he was the next big thing. Because contrary to what they suggested, it’s hard to deny that his capacity for long-range smashers and terrorising full backs and winning games on his own had faded to virtually nothing by the end.

He definitely became a more effective player every season in a goalscoring sense, but for me he lost a lot of his explosiveness and star power along the way. I wonder how much the knee injury that did him in against Arsenal in 2021 changed his trajectory from scintillating winger to ‘just’ a finisher.

And I just wanted a bit more.

James Knight

 

Harvey Barnes. A product of the Leicester Academy who made his first team debut in the Champions League, and who now seems destined to sign for Newcastle to play European football once again. This bookend to his time at the club comes after his best season for us, scoring 13 from 34 league games and ending up as our top scorer.

His final goal was quintessential Barnes, the player I’ll remember: burst down the left, one-two to keep the defenders guessing, take the ball onto his right foot and hit it across the goalkeeper into the net.

However, Barnes' place in the starting XI has always been a conundrum, as you can't play a system with two up front with him in the team. He’s an out-and-out winger who provides an attacking outlet but doesn't track back, so he’s wasted in a 3-5-2. Despite his goals, Leicester needed a combination of Jamie Vardy/Patson Daka playing off Kelechi Iheanacho up front for much of last season, and Barnes didn’t fit into that.

Therefore, I’m left wondering whether Barnes is a one-trick pony? If so, it's some trick, but there are parts to his game that lack star quality and prevent him from being the complete player we hoped he would be. Ultimately, his strengths also brought limitations along with them.

Adam Hodges