Barnard: 'It's probably been the best goalscoring start in my professional career'

Barny: ' It's been a weird League campaign for us so far'

Lee Barnard reached double figures after his brace at Stockport last weekend and has now become League One's top scorer with 10.

He spoke to Blues Insider about the achievement: "It's great to see if I'm being honest. It's probably been the best goalscoring start in my professional career which I'm really proud of. I know I can score given the opportunity and I'm happy that the opportunities have arrived so far this season and I obviously hope this continues. I just hope to remain at the top come the end, as it means that hopefully the team too will have had a decent season at which point I can reflect on the achievement."

Lee also mentioned how his teammates have contributed: "I'm fortunate enough to play in a team with very decent strikers at this level, as well as the variety of skills they possess. I've made no secret of how useful I find it playing alongside Dougie, as he is an incredibly intelligent footballer who is always talking to me on and off the pitch. He also drops deep quite a bit, like he did on Saturday, which in turn allows me to get in behind defences. On his day Francis (Laurent) is unstoppable which opens up a lot of space for me, whereas Roy (O'Donovan) is full of running across the whole of the back line which frees me up too."

He went on to the Stockport experience: "Saturday was a good performance and exactly what we needed given the previous weeks results. It was safe to say, given my penalty miss against Leeds and the fact it was the only miss of my career, it was the most nervous build up to the penalty I've had in my career. A few people have asked if I'd considered letting someone else take, it but it didn't even enter my mind to be honest."

And on the team's fortune's "It's been a weird League campaign for us so far. We've had many positives, but at the same time we've thrown games away when we should have won. But we are working our hardest to stop the stupid mistakes and hopefully, those sort of slip ups will be few and far between from now until the end of the season. We know Southampton will be one of our toughest tests so far, but we've shown we can compete against the better sides in this division, certainly at home, and we hope to get something out of the game on Friday."

To read the interview in full, go here:
zeta.ecommzone.com/LZ/SUFC/0013WM/06fdb36881bf5c6f56abaccae045ca2705/story1.htm