Bristol Rovers will be getting the same old Joey Barton.

Never heard of him

Everything you need to know about Rod Liddle:

Owen Jones? I’d say Alex Jones is a reliable source compared to that twerp.

I see the “everyone I don’t like is Hitler” extends to the spectator now.

Well unless he has photoshopped that article I would say the source is reliable.

Whether it’s true or not is irrelevant. As has already been pointed out by the mods, political discussions don’t belong here, so referencing partisan political activists is only going to send threads down this route.

No. the article in the Spectator.

Bristol Rovers will be getting the same old Joey Barton
Rod Liddle

Sunday February 28 2021, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

Cometh the hour, cometh the maniac. Bristol Rovers, deep in trouble in the third tier, were desperate for salvation — and believe they have found it in the form of Joseph Anthony Barton.

Yes, he’s back in a managerial capacity, one month after being dismissed by Fleetwood Town. The Fleetwood gig did not end too well. Joey sacked Fleetwood’s top scorer, Ched Evans, supposedly because of a comedy skit the striker performed at a Friday night get-together. But also, as Barton put it, for various “infractions”.

The club’s owner, Andy Pilley, investigated the matter and decided that Barton must go as well. Perhaps it was also at the back of Pilley’s mind that Barton will be up in court in June, accused of headbutting and punching the former Barnsley manager, Daniel Stendel, in the tunnel after a game. If found guilty it is not beyond imagination, given Joey’s lengthy rap sheet, that a custodial sentence might apply.

None of this put off the Bristol Rovers owner, Wael al Qadi, who appointed Barton to take charge last week. His debut as manager was a 2-1 home defeat in a relegation six-pointer with Wigan Athletic. Perhaps it was too early for Mr Barton to have left an indelible mark on the team.

The appointment divided the long-suffering Gasheads. Many complained that Barton was the wrong fit for a “family club”. Who did they want then? Holly Willoughby? But then Barton has always rather divided opinion. I have some time for the chap, despite the fact that he once complained, bitterly, to this newspaper that I had referred to him as a “psychopath”. I meant it in a good way. He was playing for Newcastle United at the time and insisted that his wild days were behind him: he now wished to be a role model and his behaviour was exemplary. A little later this role model was sent off for a terrible tackle on Xabi Alonso, causing his manager Alan Shearer to scream at him in the dressing room that it was a “coward’s tackle”. A somewhat heated row developed, with Barton flinging a salvo of vituperation at his boss. When assistant manager Iain Dowie intervened, Barton remarked: “You keep out of it, boxing-glove head.” Magnificent, in its way, no?

My own view is that Barton was a greatly under-rated player and also a decent writer. His book about the game, No Nonsense, is pungent, funny and very often perceptive. But I do not go along with those who excuse Barton because he is articulate, sometimes even given to quoting Friedrich Nietzsche — as if he were one of those noble savages Jean Genet used to write about. A punch in the face is still a punch in the face, regardless of whether or not the perpetrator has a copy of Albert Camus’s The Plague in his pocket.

Barton’s rap sheet is very, very lengthy and it is punctuated, every so often, by him saying that he’s going straight. But he never does, or never has yet. Nor does he quite disown his own violence, bragging (in his book) after punching one member of his own team (three times, hard), that he was “from the streets”.

One or maybe two infractions we might forgive and even forget, but that is not the case with Barton. Stubbing out a cigar in a young player’s eye, lamping a 15-year-old who was lippy, punching Morten Gamst Pedersen, even beating up his own dad. It’s a long litany. I’m sure Joey would agree with Jean-Paul Sartre’s insistence that our existence precedes our essence, that we can make of ourselves what we will, that our personalities are not set in stone when we are born. But he reverts to type time and time again. Also, I’m not convinced by those spectacles he wears when he’s addressing the media, or the Cambridge Union. Those are the only times he wears them, to appear studious and un-Joey-Barton-like. Bet it’s plain glass in those frames.

Still, I wish him well in Bristol. He has a shrewd and unforgiving footballing brain and thoroughly dislikes some of the appurtenances of modern football — especially cossetted, useless players. He is also undoubtedly a talismanic presence, which is pretty much all a manager needs to be. We overstate the importance of the manager when in truth he is the most expendable employee of the club. You want your club to do better? Get a new owner, or a new centre forward. Managers are only rarely the cause of a team’s success or failure — just ask Jürgen Klopp at mid-table Liverpool.

Barton met with his team shortly before that defeat by Wigan. He remarked that he was pleasantly surprised by their eyeballs. I am not entirely sure what that means. If he’s going to punch anyone it will probably be the defenders, who have been hopeless all season. Unless he really has changed. Have you, Joey?

Here's the article - discuss!

Deleted, as Topper has just posted above! 

Smacks of a hack rehashing the same old stories to try and stay relevant.