Harvey Barnes

[Lotus]

3 hours ago, The College Dropout said:

The ‘we spent £40m on Gordon 6 months earlier but he wasn’t good straight away so we spent another £40m on Barnes’ argument is a bad one.  

Have to agree. Imagine we bought Tino for £40m and then 6 months later spend another £40m on another RB in case Tino wasn’t going to be good enough.

If you trust in your reasons that a player is right for the club and they end needing a bit of work you stick to the plan, surely?

[Shearergol]

1 hour ago, Lotus said:

Have to agree. Imagine we bought Tino for £40m and then 6 months later spend another £40m on another RB in case Tino wasn’t going to be good enough.

If you trust in your reasons that a player is right for the club and they end needing a bit of work you stick to the plan, surely?

 

I genuinely think we were squad building. I know we're not used to it, and it's not worked out that well (yet).

[Pablo123]

5 hours ago, The College Dropout said:

The ‘we spent £40m on Gordon 6 months earlier but he wasn’t good straight away so we spent another £40m on Barnes’ argument is a bad one.  

Especially because we bought Gordon to play on the right, I think?

[Jackie Broon]

16 minutes ago, Shearergol said:

 

I genuinely think we were squad building. I know we're not used to it, and it's not worked out that well (yet).

 

Also he was a replacement for ASM who didn't fit into Howe's style of play / was our only saleable asset we were wiling to part with for PSR purposes.

[SUPERTOON]

1 minute ago, Jackie Broon said:

 

Also he was a replacement for ASM who didn't fit into Howe's style of play / was our only saleable asset we were wiling to part with for PSR purposes.

Barnes isn’t exactly suited for Howe’s style either tbh.

[Shearergol]

9 minutes ago, SUPERTOON said:

Barnes isn’t exactly suited for Howe’s style either tbh.

 

I'm not sure what Howe's style is anymore

 

Barnes has been one of our most effective players this season though.

[SUPERTOON]

Just now, Shearergol said:

 

I'm not sure what Howe's style is anymore

 

Barnes has been one of our most effective players this season though.

Fair point, he doesn’t fit into what I Howe’s style was.

[r0cafella]

14 hours ago, LFEE said:

So I will return to my point. Which great player have we managed to extract without the club being absolutely desperate? None. They’ve only done business when out of their hands. So to me that limits our market in the division severely. Until a player wants to come so bad the club sets a realistic fee. Guehi didn’t and Palace teased us until the window expired.

 

January window is going to be fascinating. I’ve no idea what’s going to happen and what direction we take. My guess would be abroad. 

My friend I'm not sure what point your making, of course we can't easily buy players from clubs who are under no pressure to sell easily, but this applies to the entire league hence my examples of Arsenal and Chelsea paying huge sums for great players they didn't want to sell. If you flip the script if we'd offer 100m for Bowen west ham would take it. 

[Geogaddi]

Thought he was really poor on Sunday , looks more like an impact player than a regular starter to me .

[Lush Vlad]

Never gets a run of games as a starter and it always seems like he gets subbed off after 60 odd minutes, anyway. However good, bad or indifferent he is on the day.  
 

Hard to fully judge him as a starting player IMO. As he is in and out of the team every 5 minutes. 
 

He was not good on Sunday. Although Gusto was decent against him, plus he did get away with numerous fouls on him. Well, in the ref’s view whenever it was someone else doing it they were  

I still thought we managed to get him 1 v 1 a few times and it was often promising. Just one too many touches or the attack breaking down.  
 

I’d like to see him get a run on the left if Gordon is out for a while. It’s hardly like we have many goals in the team as it is. 

[buzza]

Gusto is one of the best full backs in the league at the moment. Don't think anyone gets much change out of him!

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Gusto was/is good but I thought Barnes should have had at least 2 or 3 more attacking free kicks as well. 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 10:45 by AyeDubbleYoo

[OoOGazOoO]

No me Gusto

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 11:33 by OoOGazOoO

[Ikon]

I've said it from the beginning, i cannot understand why we signed him.

[Ronaldo]

3 minutes ago, Ikon said:

I've said it from the beginning, i cannot understand why we signed him.

Yeah. Very fine finisher but absolutely not what we needed to spend £40m on given his massive limitations as a winger. 

[Yorkie]

Can't understand what the mystery is tbh. ASM went, leaving Gordon as our only LW, who was also expected to fill in at CF to relieve Isak and Wilson. Barnes was a quality goalscoring winger available at a competitive price so we signed him. 

[HaydnNUFC]

6 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

Can't understand what the mystery is tbh. ASM went, leaving Gordon as our only LW, who was also expected to fill in at CF to relieve Isak and Wilson. Barnes was a quality goalscoring winger available at a competitive price so we signed him. 

 

We also had players that could play on the left as was evident in 2022-23 in Joelinton, Anderson, Willock and worse case scenario Isak.

 

On the right two players who are not good enough remained, and still do.

[Yorkie]

1 minute ago, HaydnNUFC said:

 

We also had players that could play on the left as was evident in 2022-23 in Joelinton, Anderson, Willock and worse case scenario Isak.

 

On the right two players who are not good enough remained, and still do.

 

Only Joelinton is anywhere up to scratch in that position and has been a crucial member of the midfield. 

 

That's besides the point though - the issue is that we didn't sign a RW in  January or the summer. The Barnes signing is absolutely fine, just undermined by the lack of investment thereafter. 

[SUPERTOON]

12 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

Can't understand what the mystery is tbh. ASM went, leaving Gordon as our only LW, who was also expected to fill in at CF to relieve Isak and Wilson. Barnes was a quality goalscoring winger available at a competitive price so we signed him. 

Do you genuinely not think we would have been better spending that money elsewhere on the squad ?

[Yorkie]

Just now, SUPERTOON said:

Do you genuinely not think we would have been better spending that money elsewhere on the squad ?

 

Think I've answered that above. Barnes is a really good player and has already delivered in some big moments for us. 

[HaydnNUFC]

5 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

 

Only Joelinton is anywhere up to scratch in that position and has been a crucial member of the midfield. 

 

That's besides the point though - the issue is that we didn't sign a RW in  January or the summer. The Barnes signing is absolutely fine, just undermined by the lack of investment thereafter. 

 

Joelinton and Willock's interchanging on the left was one of the positive patterns of play lauded by fans in 2022-23 which has disappeared. Both could play there. The only time I was ever really impressed with Elliot Anderson was away at Forest when he came on for ASM at LW.

 

Even forgetting that and just counting Joelinton; there's two players in Gordon and Joelinton who are good enough for LW, despite Joelinton being more a CM these days. We don't have any good enough for the RW. Still don't. 

 

Barnes is a £40m outlay with other more pressing matters in the squad both now and when we signed him. Whilst in the present, the manager doesn't know what to do with him. Start him? Play him on the right? Put him on the left and move Gordon out of his best position for us? Sub him on as that's where the bulk of his goals come from? He's a good finisher but a poor signing in hindsight imo. That £40m should've gone on a RW and we'd have had a decent pool to pick from as we'd have had the lure of CL football in summer 2023.

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 12:18 by HaydnNUFC

[r0cafella]

1 minute ago, Yorkie said:

 

Think I've answered that above. Barnes is a really good player and has already delivered in some big moments for us. 

I actually think Barnes and his limitations means he probably needs a system designed to get the best out of him. Hes a winger who essentially can't pass or dribble far from Orthodox. 

 

He was a opportunistic buy imo. Which is good but ultimately when squad building you need a long term plan and idea of where you want to get to buying based upon stats or perceived value can throw you for a loop. 

[Conjo]

I have my reservations over Barnes/prioritization of where we have strenghtened the squad as well, but he is clutch as fuck and will help us gain many points in the coming years. Seems to be best as a sub coming on against tired legs after Gordon has harassed the opposition defence for 60+ minutes.

[Ikon]

5 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

Can't understand what the mystery is tbh. ASM went, leaving Gordon as our only LW, who was also expected to fill in at CF to relieve Isak and Wilson. Barnes was a quality goalscoring winger available at a competitive price so we signed him. 

 

It's simply that he doesn't offer enough for me. Not a bad player as he's a great finisher, but i reckon that we

needed more variation in our tool kit to make us less predictable and allow us some more patterns of play.

 

I've said before that i think we need to improve our technical and creative ability, Also been saying that to evolve to the next level we need to improve our in general play as well as becoming a slightly more possession based team. 

We can't get to the next level without finding a good balance between directness/possession. I said a long time ago that i reckon we'll be found out otherwise and that other teams will adapt and we'll find it harder unless we can

become more unpredictable amd have more variation in our play. Just to add, i maintain the idea that we need a creative attacking midfielder to give us some playing depth both going forward and defensively.

Think it would make us better in both directions as well as helping Isak A LOT. The distance between say Tonali and Bruno and isak is quite massive, so it doesnt take advantage of their ability either imo.

 

 

 

[80]

Amidst all this, there is the question of whether Barnes will tolerate playing the role of an impact sub throughout the best years of his career.