You forgot boxing and kick boxing, Oslo! You have to compare like with like. Otherwise, we'd see fielding cricketers elbowing batsmen in the throat, kneeing and nutting them etc. On the football pitch, players are penalised heavily for things that might be ignored on the rugby pitch (punch ups in the scrum are often quelled with no punishment) Bottom line - I cannot remember a professional footballer putting in the degree of "afters" that Barton did after the red card. Even Cantona acted impetuously with his flying kick. Barton tried to continue his assaults.
I have seen bigger brawls than that on football pitches, but that's not really the point here. I reckon for us Internationally anyway, that almost any publicity is good publicity. Sundays events will have got us noticed a whole load of places where we were hardly known before, and Barton loosing it will have contributed to the total picture of QPR giving City a real fight, and a big scare. Just a shame we couldn't keep it up em the extra 4 minutes!
Barton was a twat with what he did but there are a load of issues around this for me, yet we are quick to judge in isolation - 1. We sit and judge and say we wouldn't react if we were firstly kicked and then punched with a left hook (honestly can't say I wouldn't react!) 2. Because it was JB the media and FA have totally ignored any retrospective action against Tevez when he clearly fits the criteria. 3. We moan about Ashley Young diving then say that JB should have dropped to the ground like a sack of **** 4. This is a game with millions of pounds riding on it and prospect of relegation. Having been kicked and punched first, then seen only he gets the red card, he'd have known the abuse and attention he gets would be coming. Frankly i'd have possibly lost it too! I don't think things are black and white. I'd like to see him stripped of the captaincy, fined heavily and made to work hard as a squad player. He has had some very good games for us and owes us big time. He could be very useful as a smaller player in a bigger pond of talent next year. My only proviso is that I don't know how the team react to him and that is for MH to assess. If he has their support he stays, if he is disruptive then MH needs to off load.
In one of my games this season some idiot from Bootle with small man syndrome started verbally laying into me for winning a tackle against him, told me he was going to cut me after the game then came and marked me from the ensuing cross and made a point of stamping on my foot. Instead of collapsing to get him sent off/decking him, I looked him square in the eye and told him he was being pathetic (greeted my further abuse), and got on with playing my game. If I, or any other level-headed person, can remain calm like that on a Saturday morning with no chance of being recorded on camera, no fans to get on my back or indeed let down, and I'm not being paid however many thousands of pounds to stay on the pitch for ninety minutes, why shouldn't Joey Barton or any other professional be expected to do the same? Just my point of view.
Fair do's, I'm assuming the foot wasn't hurt and tbf neither was JB. Replace JB with Jamie Mackie and would we just be saying heavily provoked, heat of the moment?
Can't we just find him a prison team to play for and release him? Tomorrow ideally, if we're too late today......
Intresting stastic i copyed from guardian site: A season in statistics: the Premier League campaign in numbers Jonás Gutiérrez was the most-fouled player in the top flight but hapless Liverpool claimed some unwanted records this term Share 53 Email Paul Doyle guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 May 2012 15.58 BST Comments (55) Joey Barton doesn't need legal aid but we typical Guardian do-gooders are going to give him free advice anyway. When he appears in front of the FA Committee of Investigation into Sustained Attacks on All and Sundry following the misunderstanding in Manchester on Sunday, Barton might try to curry sympathy among the powers-that-be by pointing out that Opta statistics show that, despite incurring a record-equalling nine red cards, Queens Park Rangers were the most fouled team in the Premier League this season. And Barton was their most fouled player. Only eight players in the whole league suffered more than the 60 fouls that Barton had to endure, with Newcastle United's poor old Jonás Gutiérrez (86) being the most put-upon. True, Barton also copped 10 yellow cards, a tally beaten only by his successor at Newcastle, Cheik Tioté, but in terms of quantity, Barton was far from the most prolific fouler. That title, of course, normally goes to Kevin Davies but the decline of the barrel-chested Bolton battler has been stark this season: having been the busiest fouler in seven of the past eight Premier League campaigns, fewer appearances this term meant that Davies trundled in at a career-low sixth in the rankings, his 58 offences looking puny in comparison to the 88 of joint-winners Grant Holt and Marouane Fellain
Almost certainly!! How can you forgive him? He acted like the complete thug he is. He disrupts the dressing room and brings shame and ridicule onto our club!! Sack the ****er....now!!
Most fouled QPR player? Precisely the reason he has to go IMHO. He has become a target for every opposition player to wind up , niggle and get at knowing that they will get a reaction - not only from Barton but from the officials too! This is precisely why i think he should go 'cos from here on in he is going to be a liability.
There was at least half a dozen nailed on yellows that were committed on barton that werent given this season and a few borderline reds. He is a target for both refs and opposition players.
TBH, I wouldn't care if Barton was a 30 goal a season Messi impersonator, I'd still want him gone!! He's a twat and undermines everything!!
We will need a central defensive holding player to play WITH Ale and Diakite in many games, if we are so fortunate that these 2 are still with us next season. Barton has done well there so has Derry, without the legs of Barton. If Barton goes we need a very good repacement for him, Parker or a similar but better still younger destroyer. Derry can't go on forever!
MH likes 4-4-2. Faurlin and Diakite would be perfect as the two central midfielders. Faurlin played as a defensive midfielder all last season.
