Forget Gordon: This £40m star should be in England’s World Cup squad instead
Harvey Barnes is outperforming Anthony Gordon for Newcastle United, but does he deserve to take his place in the England squad?
He’s not always been the first name on the teamsheet for Newcastle United, but slowly but surely Harvey Barnes is emerging as one of the team’s most important players.
The 27-year-old bagged a sublime brace against an in-form Manchester City team at the weekend to earn Eddie Howe a much-needed victory against a team that he’s almost never earned a win against.
In fact, it was only Howe’s second ever victory against City in 21 attempts and his first triumph entirely in the league, with his only other win coming in the Carabao Cup two years ago. It came at a vital time as Newcastle look to spark their season back into life after a disappointing start.
Barnes stepped up just as everyone was beginning to question the team for an over-reliance on Nick Woltemade - his first strike was a beautiful curled effort from distance after linking up nicely with Bruno Guimaraes while his second, which came just moments after Ruben Dias’s equaliser, was a moment of real composure as he controlled a ball which had cannoned off the bar from Guimaraes before prodding it in from close distance.
Naturally, the 27-year-old got most of the plaudits at the full-time whistle before the Sky Sports pundits Jamie Redknapp and Micah Richards shifted the conversation towards the polarising debate over whether, Barnes, who won his one and only cap for England in October 2020, could shift his allegiances to Scotland.
"Can we expect you at the World Cup for Scotland?" asked Richards from the Sky Sports studio. Laughing and with a smile on his face, Barnes mimicked that his headphones had cut out.
But the winger did not get away with that, with presenter David Jones following up by asking if his performance was a "come and get me plea" for Clarke. Barnes' response gave little away as you’d expect from today’s media savvy footballers. "That obviously isn't on my mind at the minute," he replied. "There's a long way to go until the summer."
Will Harvey Barnes play for Scotland at the World Cup next summer?
The conversion over whether Barnes will switch his allegiances to the Scotland national team is one which has lingered away in the background for a number of years.
He’s eligible to represent Scotland through his grandparents but has only ever been a part of the England setup, representing the Three Lions at both Under-20 and Under-21 level.
The in-form winger told The Times in August 2024: “Well I’m still eligible to play for Scotland. There’s been one or two conversations, but there’s not been too much detail into that.
"To be honest, I haven’t really brought it in as part of my thought process yet. It’s not really been a serious conversation, so it’s not something I’ve really thought too much on. But I know I am still eligible to play for Scotland.”
Brian McClair, formerly of Manchester United, told Edinburgh Evening News at the time: "From a Scotland point of view, I think that they should be doing everything they can to persuade Harvey Barnes that his international future lies north of the border. Not even that far north, as he’s playing his football for Newcastle now. He’s one that I think would make a big difference, because of his pace and his attacking style.”
Could Havey Barnes stake a late claim to play for England?
It’s been 1,876 days since Barnes last represented the Three Lions in a brief 16 minute cameo as a substitute against Wales - and since that call-up he’s rarely been mentioned in debates to make the England team despite winning the FA Cup triumph with Leicester in 2021 and the Carabao Cup with Newcastle earlier this year.
He ended his Leicester career with the disappointment of relegation in 2023 but was clearly the team’s standout performer with 13 goals in his final season - more than three times the number of Jamie Vardy that campaign.
Injuries have since hampered his early progress at Newcastle. He scored on his debut from the bench against Aston Villa but then missed large chunks of the 2023/24 campaign with injury, limiting him to just seven league starts that season and frustratingly only one minute of Champions League football.
By the time his second season came around, although he did offer a threat with nine goals and five assists, he’d very much been typecast as a super sub after Anthony Gordon’s heroics in the 2023/24 campaign.
However, that narrative is starting to change quickly at Newcastle. Gordon may have scored four in five matches in the Champions League this season, but it’s now been more than 10 months since he last scored a league goal against Wolves on 15 January 2025 while it’s now also 10 months since his last assist in a 3-1 victory over Southampton 10 days later.
Gordon at present is offering nowhere near the same level of threat that he once showed at Newcastle in his first full season, yet surprisingly finds himself in contention to play for the Three Lions in North America.
While there’s no doubt, Gordon on his day is a real threat, it’s been the best part of a year since Newcastle fans saw the best of him in a Black and White shirt. Even Marcus Rashford, who was lambasted by the media for a lack of consistency 12 months ago at club level had five times as many league goal contributions for Manchester United at this stage of last season before being frozen out by Ruben Amorim, than Gordon currently has for Newcastle at this same stage of the campaign.
In the time since Gordon last scored in the league, Barnes has scored seven league goals and four assists while also registering a further four goals and one assist in the Champions League.
He’s very much usurped Gordon in the race to be Newcastle’s first choice left winger at this moment in time - and could very much be in contention to leapfrog him at international level in the near future - if Scotland don’t get there first.