Norwich City signed 33 year old striker Ashley Barnes on 17th May 2023 on a two year contact effective from 1st July 2023. Norwich have fought off competition from across the Championship, including from Preston, Stoke and Cardiff, to land Barnes, who was given a tour of their Colney training base prior to putting pen to paper.  City were desperate to add an injection of mentality and experience to their squad and have moved quickly to sign Barnes, who has achieved automatic promotion in his last three Championship seasons with Burnley. 

David Wagner said. "He is a player I’ve come across on a number of occasions and he knows exactly what it takes to be successful in this league. It was very clear from our conversations that he has a real hunger and desire to continue to perform at the highest level. It was a feeling that we both have, the determination to do whatever it takes to win football games. There was a lot of competition for his signature, which says a lot about how he is respected and valued in the game.

Barnes played as a youth for Bath Arsenal and was briefly on the books of Bristol Rovers. He joined non-league Paulton Rovers and was a prolific scorer in the Southern League. This led to a trial with Plymouth in March 2007 which resulted in an 18 month contract. Whilst with Plymouth, he had loan spells at Oxford United, Salisbury City and Eastbourne but had made his league debut against Wycombe in the League Cup in August 2007. His league debut came in January 2009 against Wolves and his first goal was against Coventry. This led to a contract extension in May 2009.

Loans to Torquay (February 2010) and Brighton (March 2010) followed. On 8th July 2010 he signed a two year contract with Brighton who had been impressed with his four goals in eight games whilst on loan. He scored a total of 53 goals in 170 appearances for Brighton as they progressed from League One to establish themselves in the Championship.

On10th January 2014 he joined Burnley on a three and a half year deal for an undisclosed fee. He played a total of 293 games for Burnley, scoring 54 goals. He won the Championship title in 2015/16 and 2022/23 as well as promotion in 2013/14.

Whist born to English parents, his paternal grandmother was born in Austria and he explored whether he could represent Austria. He played for their Under-20s in August 2008 in a four nation tournament with Germany, Italy and Switzerland. In March 2017 whilst playing in the Premier League for Burnley, he again expressed interest in playing for Austria but his application for naturalisation as an Austrian citizen was rejected.

Barnes made his Norwich debut on 5th Auguist 2023 in a 2-1 home win over Hull City on the opening day of the 2023/24 season. He scored his first goal in the 3-1 home win over Millwall on 20th August 2023 and followed it with a goal in the 4-0 win at Huddersfield on 26th August 2023. Barnes made a total of 41 appearances in 2023/24, scoring seven goals as Norwich finished sixth reaching the Championship play-offs, before losing 4-0 to Leeds.