GIVE ME HARV A CHANCE
Barnes aims to join Mount in Southgate’s youth revolution
HARVEY BARNES is dreaming of joining Gareth Southgate’s youth revolution with England.
West Brom’s on-loan star will make his debut for the Under-21s against Andorra tomorrow knowing that an early promotion to the senior team is not out of the question.
Southgate is starting to reshape England’s World Cup squad and has called up James Maddison (21), Mason Mount (19), and Jadon Sancho (18).
That has freed up space in an U-21 squad that needs a point to get to the European Championship next season.
Better still for Barnes, Southgate is looking in the Championship for players he can bring into the Three Lions reckoning.
Mount has made it from Derby and now Barnes wants to be next.
“You see a lot of the youth-team managers saying it is a great time to be an England youth player because the opportunities are going to come,” said Barnes.
“All the young players know that if they are performing then Gareth Southgate is going to be looking at them.
“Mount’s inclusion shows that the England manager is looking down the leagues.
“For me, the first step was getting into the Under-21s. If I can put in a few good performances, who knows?”
Barnes, on loan from Leicester, and another loan arrival, Dwight Gayle, are full of goals and in storming form for Baggies right now.
From one down and second-best against Reading, who had gone ahead early through Leandro Bacuna, West Brom smashedfour past the Royals with two from Gayle and one each from Barnes and Kyle Bartley (below).
Barnes has five goals for the season with Gayle on eight – no wonder the Reading players looked punch-drunk come the final whistle. “We’ve got to be realistic. It is not going too well,” said Reading captain Liam Moore, whose team are just a point off bottom spot. “It is a sickening feeling. Last season people said we were nowhere near a relegation battle because we had a good squad. I still believe we’ve got a good squad but we are not showing it at the moment.”
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