The way I see the whole Barmby thing is in metaphores.
If I catch my 9 year old telling his mates I'm fat bald and snore a lot, I'll give him a clip round the lug and dock his pocket money for a couple of weeks. I won't write him out of my will and tell him he's got to leave home and go and live with his Ma and Pa in Warwickshire for the rest of his life.
To me, that is what has happened, it's just too severe, it's a waste. We had a chance to have something special, something different and all that's been blown away through an overreaction. People, and I include the Allams, should not start saying "Well this would happen in any other business, lah, blah, blah" either. Football isn't like any other business, otherwise people like Joey Barton would be long out of a job. I just hope the Allams don't continue in this rather inflexible "Bite your nose off to spite your face" manner, otherwise they are going to go through more managers in the next decade than any other club in football.