Well that didn’t take long, did it?
Barton has been in Scotland five minutes and he’s already giving it large like an English hooligan in a French square. At least until the Russian’s showed up. One suspects that this mouthy git will similarly get what he’s been begging for.
I wasn’t even going to waste my time and effort writing this, but I decided I had to when I read the full transcript of what he had to say, because as if insulting the captain of Celtic and Scotland, and then having a pop at the new manager wasn’t enough, Barton’s also pushing the Victim Myth as well.
This is about “Scotland against Sevco” is it?
What a clown.
Just in the door and he’s already swallowed the lot, with a helping of custard.
He wasn’t even a Sevco player before he was tweeted WATP, like some halfwit who’d been following them his whole life instead of telling everyone on Twitter how much he liked Celtic and respected Irish Republicans.
Barton’s claims are arrant nonsense, and reveal the ego that so attracts him to many of the Sevconian persuasion.
As I suspected, this guy is going to fit right in and be a poster boy for the very worst elements of their support, once they can look past his claimed political loyalties.
It won’t take them long, because he’ll pander to them like crazy.
Barton’s tirade against Rodgers is ridiculous, but his snarling invective against Scott Brown is far more stupid. Our captain is a model professional, a national figure, a leader in the dressing room for club and for country, with a slew of awards to his name.
He’s also a fantastically loyal player, having had two senior clubs in his career.
That shows he’s a stable character who makes friends in the dressing room and fits right in there.
Barton, two years older, has a solitary cap.
He spent the early part of his career with a pre-wealth Manchester City. He left under a very dark cloud when he broke a pedestrian’s leg driving like a maniac through the city at 2 in the morning. He had already started a ten man brawl during a friendly match and stubbed out a cigarette on his own team mates eye. He then assaulted a 15 year old Everton fan. The last straw was an alleged assault on a taxi driver.
You see a pattern emerging, right?
I think it’s fair to say that City were glad to get shot of him, but not before he won his only England cap, which he tarnished by ranting about his fellow internationals.
Onward then to Newcastle where he got off to a great start by criticising his own fans and was then arrested in the notorious Church Street incident, for which he got six months in the jail. That double assault had been committed whilst he was on bail for two prior offences.
Newcastle put up with a lot when he came back but a red card tackle against Liverpool, after he’d just returned to the team from a spell out injured, was enough for Alan Shearer who told him to stay away from the club, and they banned him from their training ground.
When Shearer left Allardyce gave him another chance, which he blew when he punched Morton Gamst Pedersen in the chest and got a three match ban. He then decide to branch out into homophobic abuse, directing a tirade at Fernando Torres.
Newcastle didn’t offer him a new deal, and he departed with one last swipe at the club and the board of directors, although he did thank the fans who he’d let down time and time again by behaving like an absolute ned.
And so it was on to QPR where he quickly got into a fight with Wolves player Karl Henry.
QPR had foolishly gave him the captains armband, a decision which looked ludicrous a year later when he was sent off for head-butting Bradley Johnson of Norwich.
Even more ridiculous was that they didn’t strip him of the captaincy afterwards.
Mark Hughes made that decision.
On the final day of that season, with the club needing a draw from their game with Manchester City he rewarded manager and club alike by elbowing Carlos Tevez in the face and getting sent off. He reacted in typical snarling manner, kicking out at Aguero and trying to head-butt Vincent Kompany. He had to be dragged from the pitch. The club lost the game late, but survived in the EPL due to Bolton losing the same day.
During that summer the FA banned him for 12 games.
The club stripped him of the armband, an overdue and futile gesture at that point.
A loan spell at Marseilles didn’t end well. He made homophobic remarks on Twitter and was given a three match ban. Whilst he was in France he embarrassed himself with a ridiculous prank, addressing the French media in accented English; the sort of stupid stunt Gazza would once have pulled.
His return to QPR didn’t end in glory.
He was sent off another twice and they decided not to offer him a new deal.
He was linked with a move to West Ham, but their fans revolted at the idea and the club called off the deal.
He wound up at Burnley.
For the first time in his career, Barton has left a club whose fans were sad to see him go and arrived at one whose fans are not apprehensive to see him sign.
Who wants to guess how that will end?
Overpaid, over-rated and for sure a bomb waiting to go off … this move has “disaster” written all over it. And he’s already started, stirring the soup and causing controversy. He can’t help it. His social media following now includes a lot of people who are going to try and wind him up every chance they get – and he’s easily wound up – and players all over the country are going to be giving him stick in every single game. It is a matter of time.
He’s come to Scotland with the kind of attitude most of us hoped was gone in the game; that of the over-paid English based player who sees this league as a final payday and an easy ride. He’s in for the shock of his life, as players before him will attest. The pace of the game here is going to leave him standing and the aggression level is just high enough to detonate him once a game.
On top of that, he’s going to love going out drinking in Glasgow.
I think we know how that particular story ends.
Scott Brown has been dealing with all that his whole career.
He’s mastered the Scottish game and the Scottish mind-set. He’s tempered his own aggressive tendencies brilliantly, and he’s also a wind-up merchant par excellence who, I suspect, will enjoy every second against this overblown ned.
The comments about Brendan Rodgers are simply contemptable, especially when one considers his own club manager and his three year career in the game.
This embrace of the Victim Myth is what’s truly toxic though.
If Barton already has those ideas in his head then truly he is a liability to the club in every way, because a guy with his behavioural record and those sort of views doesn’t belong on the pitch; he belongs amongst the howling mob in the stands, just priming itself for an excuse to run onto the park and have a punch up.
Here in Scotland he will find a willing audience for any view he espouses, no matter how ridiculous.
This guy will make himself the story at every opportunity and perhaps that’s why he’s really been signed by the NewCo, cause if the media is concentrating on him they aren’t concentrating on the real stories, the real issues, the real scandals.
We’ve already seen that in action today.
More on that later.