Brown Nose
Well-Known Member
You can see it when he plays there is no effort to track back, he gives up when he loses the ball, he still can not stop shooting at the centre of the goal, that is either poor application or lack of ability I would argue it is poor application.
He has got everything strength, power,speed yet he still struggles to control the ball looks like he does not understand where to be positionally and most importantly hides behind players to avoid responsibility, just look at the goal that Chelsea scored against us. Chillwell was yelling at him he went hiding when he should have been doing the dirty work of tracking back and closing down attackers!
That's very harsh on Barnes. I'm not suggesting that he's the finished article by any means but he's come on a lot this season and cannot be compared to the likes of Gray in terms of impact and application.
A few stats. Barnes has featured in 34 of our 36 league games this season. Only Schmeichel, Evans and Tielemans have been in more than that. This alone signifies his growth in stature this season. This is his first year as a proper first team player.
Barnes gets an assist evey 249 mins in the PL (8 in 1994 mins). In comparison, Mahrez has one every 208 mins (9 in 1873 mins). That's really strong considering his age and the fact that he's still a work in progress. One more comparison, Grealish has one every 509 mins for Villa.
Barnes is our third top scorer with 6. Of the regular players, only Maddison has more key passes per 90 mins. That's excellent considering he doesn't take set pieces.