The rise and rise of arguably Leicester City’s prize asset continued further in 2020/2021, only to be cruelly stopped at the end of February by injury. With his end product being delivered more consistently, how good is Harvey Barnes?
Harvey Barnes, Leicester City statistics
Appearances total: – 35/ Premier League –25 / FA Cup – 2 / Europa League – 8 / EFL Cup – 0
Goals total: – 13
Moment to savour: – An under-rated low drive against Manchester United
Moment to forget: – The knee injury against Arsenal that ruined his season
Progression is something synonymous with Barnes young career. His loan moves outside the Premier League have shown a continuous progression where he has built his strength and confidence from MK Dons, Barnsley and West Brom before landing a regular starting place at Leicester City.
But although he has a baby face he can no longer be tagged as a youngster with his 24th birthday due in December. Back at the start of the season when Leicester turned over West Bromwich Albion comfortably, there seemed to be a continuing trend from Harvey Barnes. For all his excellent work getting to the final third, his finishing still seemed rushed and lacked finesse. As the season progressed it became clearer that was a mere blip in what would prove to be a breakthrough season.
The next week against Burnley, he assisted and scored in a strong performance and would go on to be a key part of an astonishing 5-2 victory at Manchester City. At the Etihad, Barnes was a key component in ensuring quick breaks in attack were hard to stop. These performances were enough to earn him a call up to Gareth Southgate’s England squad where he would earn his first cap albeit in 14 minutes at the end of a comfortable 3-0 win over Wales. With an impending Euro 2020 on the horizon, another on his progression journey was looking within reach.
Brendan Rodgers asking Barnes to play in a more advanced role at Arsenal would return a familiar feeling of inconsistency. Incidentally Barnes featured in ten games between October and December where he wouldn’t complete a full 90 minutes. The Europa league was hampering a lot of players gaining momentum as the Northern-Irish manager rightly protected and managed his squad.
Once the group stages of the Europa League were completed, Rodgers reverted to unleashing his young dangerous wing man. This started to herald more and more consistent performances but most importantly gave Barnes sensational goals against Manchester United and Crystal Palace. A confidence was starting to brim through Barnes which was most telling in his pacy and mazy runs causing defenders problems throughout the land.
Goals and assists were becoming more regular and the finishing was showing devilish levels of confidence, far different from what the season had started with. Witness the finishing levels against Southampton and Leeds but equally the layoffs for goals versus Chelsea and Everton.
The last 20 minutes in the victory against Liverpool was the one that saw the media stand up and take notice, with Barnes causing Alexander-Arnold and others headaches across the flanks with his weaving sprints and directness leading to free kicks and calamity in the Liverpool defence. The icing on the cake was the third goal seeing Barnes latch onto a through-ball before sprinting away and slotting in like a Vardy in his prime. A week later he followed up his display at Villa Park with a solid goal and assist in another victory.
An England place in the summer was looking nailed on. But a week later, Leicester’s most frequent follower of 2020/21 ‘injury’ turned up again with Barnes having a serious knee injury against Arsenal that curtailed a season that was looking very promising.
With Barnes finishing on 13 goals and missing out on the final 15 games of the season it is frightening to think where he could have finished in goals and assists rankings. He is now more of a threat than Jamie Vardy and has scored more goals from open play than the Leicester City talisman. His knee injury could now behind him meaning 2021/2022 for Barnes could be very exciting.
Rating 9/10
Chances of leaving: 0%
The Future: Another season of excitement and likely more Three Lions appearances