between 87-91 he was the best player in the league
he must have had about 20 assists a season at times, usually beating the full back to the line and whipping in a cross. He was the best crosser ive probably seen as he could do it at pace too.
Deadball specialist especially with free kicks, he could use two feet, his right foot was pretty underrated as was his heading ability.
off the top of my head he scored a wonderful right foot shot at Ipswich in 1994, there was a good one too at Southampton in 1987, showed in on his supposed weaker foot and he literally passed it in to the goal from about 25 yards. There was another absolute belter in the last minute against Aston Villa in 1990 which crashed in off the bar.
Heading wise, recalling quickly, Millwall in 89, Southampton in 90, United in 97 to name 3
I do wonder at times why full backs and defence didnt do more to stop him reaching the bye line and whipping in a cross. There must be about 30 goals between 87-89 of him doing that to set up Aldridge, i guess Barnes was just brilliant at finding space and I guess to because of his balance, speed, control and skill there was no way to stop it. He seem to run faster when he had the ball.
His speed was good because of his acceleration, over the first 3-5 yards he would leave you for dead.
Injuries from 1991 on slowed him. 1991-2 was really the start of it as i think he only played about 5 games up to March (although one was a hat-trick against Crewe including a right footer at height the top corner and a back heel).
The summer of 1992 he snapped his achilles and to this day he has one leg muscle notably smaller than the other, it killed his acceleration. He didnt play that season until November. Pace wise with Mane there is no contest, Mane would have left a peak John Barnes for dead over 50 yards but maybe diet had to do with it, apparently Barnes would eat either a whole chicken or a big steak before a game as did everyone then, players definitely seem faster now and not having a big belly full of steak im sure helps plus advances in training and technology to help. The game was slower then, believe me today players like Neil Ruddock and Jan Molby in the shape they were in at times wouldnt last 10 minutes before being bombed out.
Which brings me to another point, he slowed down in later years with his weight, someone once said he only had to look at a jaffa cake and he put on half a pound, in 1993-4 he didnt play until november and i remember his first game back the pub was shocked to see him, he looked a good 20 pounds overweight.
i think fans were becoming very frustrated with him at this point as they expected the winger of the early years and his pace was ruined by the injury which probably meant he couldnt train as hard and maybe it flared up and he put on weight when out.
even between 1994-7 fans were frustrated but looking back his game evolved so much at that time, he was actually ahead of him time as he could link the play with defence and attack so well, he rarely gave the ball away and was still a very intelligent ball user (eg the guided finish at southampton in 1996 when Dave Beasant fluffed a clearance and Barnes literally sidefooted it home from about 40 yards)
He got his weight down most of the time and i think between 1994-7 he was a completely different asset to the team and good foil for the younger players like Redknapp and McManaman.
Tremendous ball control and passing, that never left him. Super intelligent player. You would pay mega money for a player like that today.
as for earlier in his career with the amount of assists and goals he had and what he could do it is no exaggeration he could probably get a world record fee if we sold him
