FPL Gameweek 9: Is Harvey Barnes being overlooked?

Throughout the 2022/23 Fantasy Premier League (FPL) season, our team of Pro Pundits, Hall of Famers and guest contributors will be sharing their thoughts, tips and own transfer plans.

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Here, five-time top 1k finisher Tom Freeman takes a closer look at Harvey Barnes and Leicester City before talking through his Gameweek 9 plans.

“It’s a good time [international break] to reset everything, break the cycle from the summer.” – Brendan Rodgers

After six consecutive defeats, Leicester City are, unsurprisingly, bottom of the table. It’s been a really poor start to the season, although they have been in steady decline for a while now, winning just seven of their 27 league games in 2022.

However, they have scored 41 goals in that time, which tells us they’ve been good enough on the attacking side of things. Indeed, even after claiming just a single point in 2022/23 so far, their 10 goals is the joint-eighth highest tally in the division, while their expected goals (xG) total of 7.84 puts them in 12th place.  

Given that their opening seven fixtures have been really tough, with four of those games against the ‘big six’, it’s a pretty decent return. Even in the 6-2 loss at Tottenham Hotspur in Gameweek 8, Leicester had some promising moments in attack and actually outshot their opponents by 13 to six in the first half.

“There’s no doubt, in the seven games, we’ve had a tough start. After the summer we’ve had, we’ve had Tottenham away, Chelsea away, Arsenal away, and Manchester United at home.” – Brendan Rodgers

Now, Leicester have an opportunity to turn things around, with a nice run of fixtures taking them up to the World Cup.

They begin their favourable schedule with back-to-back matches against newly-promoted Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth, the two worst sides in the division for allowing shots this term.

Then, it’s Crystal Palace, Leeds United and Wolverhampton Wanderers, who also sit in the bottom half of the table.

That run should provide a platform for their attacking players to shine, including James Maddison (£7.9m), who has already produced three goals and an assist across his six league appearances, blanking only twice. The playmaker had his best game of the season so far against Spurs, regularly drifting in off the right, and I rate him as the best mid-price midfielder to own for the next few weeks.

With Maddison in form, Leicester will always create and score more, which could potentially benefit other players, too, like Harvey Barnes (£6.9m), who I feel is being overlooked. It’s hard to put the winger, owned by just 1.1% of FPL managers, ahead of his pricier team-mate, but after missing the first two matches of the season, he’s racked up 10 shots in the box. That’s six more than Maddison in that period (Gameweek 3 onwards) and joint-second among all midfielders, only behind the 11 of Gabriel Martinelli (£6.6m).

At this stage, it’s worth noting that Barnes has underperformed his xG in two of his three prior seasons, with delta figures of -0.47, +3.08 and -2.12 respectively. Maddison, meanwhile, has been more clinical, registering +3.22, +4.19 and +0.65 tallies. That backs up what I often see on the pitch, that Barnes is a high-volume shooter who sometimes lacks accuracy.

However, he has been a reliable source of Fantasy returns in the past, producing six goals and 12 assists in 2021/22 and nine goals/five assists in 2020/21.

With Leicester struggling at the back, I do feel more teams will be encouraged to attack them, which could benefit Barnes, who often thrives with space to run into on the counter. I also recall him causing Nottingham Forest’s Joe Worrall (£4.4m) loads of problems in the FA Cup clash earlier this year, which is another promising sign.

“It’s something [goals] that we’ve [him and Brendan Rodgers] spoken about together. And it’s something that we can definitely add even more to my game now – goals and getting into the box more. If you look at the best wingers in the world, as good as they are out wide and dribbling with the ball, they find themselves arriving in the box at the right times to get a lot of those scrappy goals, which is important for the team. If you can score as many amazing goals as you do tap-ins at the back post, then you’re doing your job as an attacker. It’s something that I’ve definitely, over the last season and going into this season, looked to add to my game. As much good work as I do out of the box and out wide, trying to create chances for other players, it’s also about getting in and getting those goals that come off your knee or whatever it is. If it goes in the back of the net, it doesn’t matter because it’s a goal for the team and for yourself.” – Harvey Barnes

MADDISON v BARNES: THE UNDERLYING NUMBERS