Ashley Barnes - a work in progress.....

[Chesney Christ]

Really disappointed by some of the treatment of Ashley Barnes on this message board since Tuesday evening. Lets just hope he isn't one of the players who reads NSC.

I think we need some perspective. What was Ashley Barnes when we signed him? A raw 20 year old with an abysmal goalscoring record for every club he had previously played for (with the exception of Eastbourne Borough in the Blue Square South) and a product of the legendary Paulton Rovers youth system, known for producing such legends as and .

His positional sense was poor and his link play was very poor.

Since then, Gus has moulded him into a good little Championship player, and if you look at his incredibly rapid progress over the last two seasons, why shouldn't we believe that he will become a very very good Championship player, and possibly more? He is 21 for f*** sake - allow him to develop.

Against Leeds, he set up both CMS goals and scored a sublime penalty. 90 minutes on the right wing later..... and he's apparently useless.

Overall, he has played very well this season. He seems to be getting abuse for the simple fact that he isn’t Glenn Murray. Totally unfair on a young lad who has come leaps and bounds since we signed him.

Glenn Murray is 28. Of course he is going to be more accomplished. Where was Murray playing his football at 21 years old?!

Well, Barrow had just signed him from Wilmington Hammerheads.

Don't believe me? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Murray

Give Ashley a break. Good lad and will go on to be a quality player.

Go on Ash

 

[BRIGHT ON Q]

I would definitely like to see 3 strikers on the go like last season,now hopefully Hoskins is fit Barnes can have a rest and come on as sub.He was very effective from the bench last season.

 

[drew]

Well said.

 

[Mackenzie]

Barnesy is a legend.....yes, no, of course.

 

[mistahclarke]

I like Barnes. He might not be able to run rings round a whole team or leave the defence for dead in a sprint but he's got a good touch and positional sense. And he takes brilliant penalties.

 

[marshy68]

Two points i would make:-

1) He's not a midfielder - seems to me he is being asked to play there for 90% of the time
2) 58 appearances and 31 goals = f***ing Brilliant

I would suggest that CMS and Barnes - struggle when we are pressed as no real outlet (AKA Murray for Palace on Tuesday night - thought he was their best player in the second half) Painful to say but IMO true...

Plan B is we need a bigger striker to releive pressure - errr what ever happened to Roland Berkamp

Just my thoughts

 

[The Large One]

Two points i would make:-

1) He's not a midfielder - seems to me he is being asked to play there for 90% of the time

With the possible exception of CMS and KLL, all of the forward players, whether they've been labelled 'strikers', 'wingers' or 'midfielders' have at some point during the matches and during their time with us, rotated the system so that they play wide, upfront or 'in the hole' at any given time during any given match.

To judge Ashley Barnes - or any other 'forward' player for that matter - on one particular job undermines what Gus is trying to do with the systems he employs.

 

[simmo]

Really disappointed by some of the treatment of Ashley Barnes on this message board since Tuesday evening. Lets just hope he isn't one of the players who reads NSC.

I think we need some perspective. What was Ashley Barnes when we signed him? A raw 20 year old with an abysmal goalscoring record for every club he had previously played for (with the exception of Eastbourne Borough in the Blue Square South) and a product of the legendary Paulton Rovers youth system, known for producing such legends as and .

His positional sense was poor and his link play was very poor.

Since then, Gus has moulded him into a good little Championship player, and if you look at his incredibly rapid progress over the last two seasons, why shouldn't we believe that he will become a very very good Championship player, and possibly more? He is 21 for f*** sake - allow him to develop.

Against Leeds, he set up both CMS goals and scored a sublime penalty. 90 minutes on the right wing later..... and he's apparently useless.

Overall, he has played very well this season. He seems to be getting abuse for the simple fact that he isn’t Glenn Murray. Totally unfair on a young lad who has come leaps and bounds since we signed him.

Glenn Murray is 28. Of course he is going to be more accomplished. Where was Murray playing his football at 21 years old?!

Well, Barrow had just signed him from Wilmington Hammerheads.

Don't believe me? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Murray

Give Ashley a break. Good lad and will go on to be a quality player.

Go on Ash

Don't worry about it, some people always look for a scapegoat. A week ago or so, some people were initmating on NSC that CMS wasn't up to it.

 

[Bognor Bystander]

I think the OP is right but would say the whole team is a Gus 'work in progress' - teams take a while to blend together and Barnes was playing well with Murray and Bennett last season, now he has CMS and Noone and Vicente etc so agree let's give him time and not judge or criticise after a less prominent right wing display

 

[Albion Robster]

Great Post.
Key point...21 years of age. Everyone should remember that point.
It wasn't long ago Bristol City were looking at him as a replacement for Nicky Maynard. If we were to sell him, we could earn a lot of money as we picked him up very cheap from Plymouth - how much was it??

 

[marshy68]

With the possible exception of CMS and KLL, all of the forward players, whether they've been labelled 'strikers', 'wingers' or 'midfielders' have at some point during the matches and during their time with us, rotated the system so that they play wide, upfront or 'in the hole' at any given time during any given match.

To judge Ashley Barnes - or any other 'forward' player for that matter - on one particular job undermines what Gus is trying to do with the systems he employs.

I wasnt judging him - i feel for him playing out of postion. I massively love Gus but feel we need an alternative / plan B. I think we will have many games like the palace one, the leeds one and the blackpool one where we are pressed and cant pass our way out if it. Particularly as we sit back a bit too much when in the lead.

Unfortunately if Gus gets a loan striker and or buys someone over the christmas period ( a striker of presence- i think those were his words). Barnes will be relegated to cameos and subs. Which will be hard on him considering his goal scoring record at the albion.

I am sure Gus has it all under control....

 

[SeafordBHA]

I would definitely like to see 3 strikers on the go like last season,now hopefully Hoskins is fit Barnes can have a rest and come on as sub.He was very effective from the bench last season.

really don't think this would work as its not like league 1 and we'd get completely overun, we saw something like this against leedswhen we started with lualua and noone as well as barnes and cms. first half we were dominated as played so many attacking players and leeds were able to run through us too easily, until vicente came on and solidified the middle.

Think the system at the moment works well, barnes plays a role similar to a wing forward as he plays on the right wing but also fully supports cms, noone is similar the other side and i think this is the closest we'll get to playing 3 up top.

But this thread is spot on, everyone needs to leave off him, he's young and still one of our best attacking players, if he has scored 31 in 58 thats awesome and no-one should be on his back atall!!

 

[Simster]

Well said Ches. I said as much on another thread - he is our top scorer and was played out of position. I'll bet any money that he starts with CMS ahead of Hoskins.

 

[Nut]

Love this post about Barnes. His Scoring record speaks for itself really. If the way he takes penalties says anything about his character then even if he has read some of the shit that idiots have said about him on here then it will be like water off a ducks back.

 

[JBizzle]

Also, the criticisms also completely ignore the fact that he adds so much by tracking back the opposition wingers which Murray never did.

 

[Husty]

Ok so what exactly is he? A striker? Because he seems to spend most of his time isolated off somewhere on the right doing absolutely nothing, his link up play is occasionally good but most of the times he touches it he gives it straight to an opposition player, he's played f*** all part in any of our goals over the last few games, the only things of any worth he did versus palace was the very occasional track back and tackle.

The position he plays would be much, much better occupied by Sparrow. Yes he takes a good penalty but surely THAT is not worth essentially playing with 10, because that's what we were doing first half versus Palace, he made no more than 10 touches.

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

Ok so what exactly is he? A striker? Because he seems to spend most of his time isolated off somewhere on the right doing absolutely nothing, his link up play is occasionally good but most of the times he touches it he gives it straight to an opposition player, he's played f*** all part in any of our goals over the last few games, the only things of any worth he did versus palace was the very occasional track back and tackle.

The position he plays would be much, much better occupied by Sparrow. Yes he takes a good penalty but surely THAT is not worth essentially playing with 10, because that's what we were doing first half versus Palace, he made no more than 10 touches.

He had a poor game against Palace but then so did a lot of other players, the rest of that you wrote is utter rubbish. He set up both of the goals CMS scored against Leeds, the ball he put in for the the third goal in that game was pretty much perfect for CMS. He scored 2 very good penalties against Leeds and Liverpool the pressure he would have felt taking the one against Leeds would have been high. For a 21 year old being asked to play out of position at times and get through a lot of work tracking back that isn't in his natural game he is doing a great job, his goalscoring record is brilliant and he's only going to get better under Gus.

 

[ferring seagull]

I have certainly been impressed with Barnsey this season and have posted accordingly.

CMS is truly unbelievable in the way he chases down opponents and goalkeepers in particular, but, needs someone else to do likewise to truly close them down, he cannot do that on his own. That is something Barnsey was doing but appears to have given up on, my opinion, thus leaving CMS to charge around like a headless chicken, pointless if no support ! It's about effort at the end ! (PS I think CMS is terrific)

Don't get me wrong, I like B but he is not cutting it currently, so perhaps it is time for Hosky 7 to be given an extended run starting, now that he seems to 100% fit again.

 

[Chesney Christ]

he's played f*** all part in any of our goals over the last few games

He set up both CMS goals against Leeds ya f***ing cretin.

 

[BRIGHT ON Q]

really don't think this would work as its not like league 1 and we'd get completely overun, we saw something like this against leedswhen we started with lualua and noone as well as barnes and cms. first half we were dominated as played so many attacking players and leeds were able to run through us too easily, until vicente came on and solidified the middle.

Think the system at the moment works well, barnes plays a role similar to a wing forward as he plays on the right wing but also fully supports cms, noone is similar the other side and i think this is the closest we'll get to playing 3 up top.

But this thread is spot on, everyone needs to leave off him, he's young and still one of our best attacking players, if he has scored 31 in 58 thats awesome and no-one should be on his back atall!!

What i meant was we need 3 strikers and rotate them like we did with Murray,wood and Barnes last year.they were all rested from time to time and it worked.Barnes was often very good coming off the bench.Saturday would be ideal to give him a rest and start Hoskins.