If anyone will buy and won't take away from transfer budget. If his pay off is going to dent the transfer budget, prefer to keep him despite his failings.
Offer him up for a free to get his wages off the books. Even then I doubt we could give him away.....
Surely we can cancel his contract/sack him for either gross misconduct/bringing the club into disrepute. All I know is I never want to see him in the hoops again
according to his twitter account...he is Portugal with his family, enjoying the sun and pool. ......on our money (and TFs obviously) Sell him......if we can
Apparently Barton and Derry had to be dragged apart at half-time v West Brom away. Barton lost it with Derry and Shaun wanted to kill him.
Who's going to 'buy' him with a potential 10-15 game ban on the cards fpr next season? Will go abroad, somewhere intellectual like Belgium
I can't see TF being happy to be associated going forward with the actions and reputation of JB. He was supposed to be a reformed character and as such the past was just that, the past, but obviously that is patently false, and he wouldn't want his business interests infected anymore than they already have been. I can see TF instructing his lawyers to work out a package to get him out of the club asap whatever the cost.
Our best hope is China or the middle east. Someone who will pay lots of money for the name, rather than the player.
I read in The Independant today that it would cost us £12.5 million to sack Barton. It's a crazy immoral world sometimes.
I'm going to play devil's advocate a bit here. While I don't condone his excessively OTT behaviour on Sunday, he is still a reformed character to a degree. He doesn't drink and does control his behaviour off the field. He has become a philanthropist. His main problems are anger management and probably an inferiority complex that result in him reacting very badly when he feels threatened by either someone directly or by injustice. Most of his negative tweets also come about by seeking acceptance for his intellectualism and any threats against that. Off the field he has served his time and is relatively ordinary by most footballers standards but, when on-field incidents occur, his past gets dragged up again. Slightly unfairly in my opinion. That said, on field he did nearly cost us our place in the Prem (by overreacting to injustice) and what does annoy me most is his apparent lack of remorse about the whole thing. He almost seems resigned to being exiled from the club. As a player, his red mist has undermined his recent performances and we cannot allow him to carry on as a ticking time bomb while we helplessly wait for it to happen again. He needs psychiatric help, on a continual basis, leading up to games (this may also address his need to dominate the dressing room). My answer to the question is therefore this:- 1) If he has already left in his head then get rid by whatever means - we want players that are committed to us. 2) if he genuinely wants to stay, wants to make amends and agrees to strict conditions about seeking help and his future conduct then I'd give him one last chance. He can give his 10-15 weeks' worth of cash to charity and spend a significant amount of time repairing the damage he's done to the club's reputation (perhaps in conjuction with our community project). ONLY if he does that can he stay though. Alternatively, this is irrelevant if Hughes has another Diakite like midfield dynamo in his sights then, as an apparent disruption in the dressing room, he may be surplus to requirements in a more natural way. I know Roller and a few moralists have stuck to their ground and I can respect them for it but I possibly am a bit more liberal and forgiving and am not going to lurch from condemnation to thinking him redeemed and then back again (not easily anyway). This is not blinded by my passion for the Hoops either (see conditions for him staying).
Sell him if we can but i've got a feeling he'll still be around next year. Although it will be funny to watch him sit in the reserves and sulk once he's stripped of the captaincy and his place in the starting XI and bench
On the one hand, he's not a particularly good player, his temperament is a liability, he is a disruptive influence in the dressing room and he has brought our club into disrepute. On the other hand, er, um, er.......
