BARNES STORMING
Foxes star won’t give up on Qatar dream
HARVEY BARNES has not given up on his World Cup dream – but admits it is now a long shot.
Leicester City’s winger continued his one-man war on Leeds United by scoring on Thursday against them for the sixth successive game.
And he showed signs that he was picking up the form that suggested he was a decent outside bet to make the plane for Qatar.
Barnes’ star has been on the wane along with the Foxes’ disappointing start to the campaign – but he has not given up all hope.
He said: “The team’s form hasn’t been great and sometimes, as attacking players, it’s difficult to go out and shine.
“It’s never easy. My form has been similar to the team’s – up and down.
“I’ve had a few good games, scored a couple of goals, but then there have been other games where I’ve been quiet and not affected it.
“So I need to get that consistency between now and the World Cup, hit the best form I can, score a few goals and try to put my name forward.
“There’s not a lot of time and not being involved in the last squad put me in a worse-off position.
“But you never know, so you’ve got to just keep ploughing on and try and give the manager as big a headache as you can.”
England boss Gareth Southgate was among the crowd at the King Power Stadium last week when the Foxes managed a goalless draw against Crystal
Palace.
The clean sheet would have buoyed boss Brendan
Rodgers (right) and added to the fragile confidence Barnes admits has taken a hit after a few below-par showings.
He said: “We know our levels haven’t been there this year, for one reason or another.
“You can’t put your finger on it, but, in the last three or four games, you can definitely see a change.
“In our last three home games, we’ve had three clean sheets – and that’s been our biggest problem this year. We’ve been shipping goals.
“So, that’s a massive positive. We’re always going to score goals with the quality we have in the side. We’re always going to hurt opponents.
“And the goal we scored against Leeds – you don’t do that if you’re low on confidence.
“Now, people are making runs, people are sprinting down channels, we’re fighting for balls.
“The last few home games have been good, now we have to take that into the away games.”
Leicester and Wolves will be bidding to move out of the bottom three with victory at Molineux, with recent games between the sides being tight affairs.
Barnes added: “You look at Wolves and they haven’t scored too many goals – and they haven’t conceded too many, either.
“That tells you a lot – we’re going to have to take our A-game there to come away with a result
“And we’ll have to be careful because they have a few dangerous players.”