http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...y-Barton-train-Fleetwood-Town-League-Two.html Might be a dirty arsehole... but good god it'd be hilarious if he ended playing against the likes of Accrington Stanley and Barnet instead of Manchester United and Chelsea.
Can't stand him- sums up most things wrong about a few footballers at the top level, an overpaid idiot who thinks he is a lot better than he is and behaves like scum.
People often say 'He's an arsehole, but he's a great footballer" but I don't buy it personally. Never seen any evidence that he's a great footballer, he has a good range of passing, that's about it. Would agree he was of a better level than Fleetwood/League 2, but no better than a relegation scrap Premier League team/decent Championship team level. There'd be a new dressing room 'bust-up' kind of story every week if he signed for Fleetwood.
Complete non-story. He's training with Fleetwood because part of his punishment at QPR (however many weeks' fine, stripped of the captaincy, etc) was that he couldn't go on their team jolly to tour Asia. While the rest of them and all their coaches are out in Asia he's hardly going to be training at their own training ground. I don't know if Fleetwood are local to him, have an arrangement with QPR, or are just doing it for publicity, but it's never going to happen. EDIT: Just thought, it might happen. Football League teams play a lot more games than PL teams do, especially L1 and L2 clubs that are in the League Cup from the 1st Round and have the JPT as well as not have nearly two weeks between games due to international breaks. They might strike a deal of convenience to sign him on an emergency loan for 3 months from the start of the season. That way Barton's long suspension will be served while he's out on loan and QPR play about half the games. Soon as he's available for them they recall him from the loan (as it's an emergency loan they could do that). QPR get the player back from suspension more quickly, Fleetwood get the publicity for a freebie loan.
http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/12691/7929296/Barton-to-train-with-Fleetwood Also Barton is friends with Andy Mangan (or someone) who is Fleetwood's captain? So not that much of a non-story.
Against the likes of the two of the smallest clubs as opposed to the likes of the two of the biggest ones? Yeah, really fair comparison.
Breaking news on BBC sport. Qpr are considering loaning barton to a fl club to exploit a loophole in the suspension rules. They say it will speed up the serving of the ban
Wednesday and Blackburn are known to have expressed an interest. What odds on a Brucie bonus signing for us...?
Why would it be a bonus for us? I thought the idea is for him to get through his suspension quicker by being out for the greater number of games at Fleetwood, not to actually play there.. And if he is allowed to get away with it, could it happen for normal suspensions, if a key player is loaned to a side with a match to serve his suspension, the comes back to the Prem without missing a game?
No. The shortest loan length allowed before recalling a player is 28 days. It only works in this case because the suspension is massive and covers longer than that (although he's actually suspended for less games in total than he would have been for committing each of the offences in seperate games).