Joey Barton was undoubtedly a controversial figure during his time at Newcastle, from injuries to a jail term and finally some decent football from the lad. It has been well documented that it was Barton’s Twitter rants that ultimately led to his departure from St James’ Park.
Barton criticised Newcastle’s transfer policy, the fans do it but the players as employees should not, and he then he went on to claim that he would only leave for a top club. How does QPR sound? It’s hardly Arsenal, is it? Similar to his pal Kevin Nolan, Barton has ended up at a smaller club with chances of future success even less than our own. With Nolan I always thought that we were as a big a club as he had the ability to play for and in Barton’s case it was his character/mouth that was the limiting feature.
Barton will be missed on the field, of that I am sure. His aggression and leadership in midfield will not be replaced by any player currently in our ranks. However, with the central pairing of Tiote and Cabaye seeming the preferred option Barton would have been stuck out wide. I thought Barton did a terrific job there last season but at least now we can put an out and out winger there, probably Obertan. If there was one department on the pitch where we could afford to lose a top player it was the midfield and Barton’s departure will hopefully enable the likes of Vuckic and Abeid to get a few more chances.
Undoubtedly the most baffling feature of his departure is the free transfer that he was afforded. I understand the Ashley, as the boss, will not take any nonsense from employees who question his vision for his club. However, the fact that Ashley was so desperate to rid the club of the troublemaker that he was prepared to give away a key player to a team who will be rivalling us in the Premiership for no fee seems ridiculous. If he had indeed gone to Arsenal at least they would not be a club who we could expect to challenge with regard to our league position. It also seems apparent that the powers that be are very stringent with regards to the fees paid out for incoming players, why then is there such a disregard of financial prudence in relation to departures? Barton was a saleable asset and it seems absurd that we have forgone a £2/3 million transfer fee to simply make the point that Ashley will do as he likes. This point has already been made several times before.
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Strange that Ashley who is money obsessed allowed an asset worth 3-4M to leave on a free transfer.
Poor management to let personal disagreements to cost the club money.
You can’t have it both ways. Ashley stood by him when he was in prison. Everyone says ashley is greedy but he forwent a fee to get a trouble maker out of the club.
When you consider that Barton cost about £20M over four years, you’d have to argue that the whole Joey Barton debacle amounted to a far greater loss than £3m.
Where did you get £20m from? nufc bought him for £5.5?
Add on his wages over the four years (and most of that he was injured or in jail!), signing on fee, loyalty fee they had to pay because Man City refused and agents fees and you probably get somewhere near £20M
That figure includes his wages etc . . . I don’t understand why they didn’t give him a contract which banned him from tweeting with a buy-out clause. Then sell him next summer after he’s had a good season, which he would’ve undoubtedly had. No relegation, no stronger newly promoted rivals and no embarrassing tweets + a nice sum for their troubles.
Nolan was good business though, if West Ham get promoted this season, and that’s no surefire bet, he’s gonna be on the wrong side of thirty.
I agree that letting him leave for nothing after he was widely praised for his football last season is an odd decision. The other side of the equation from the management’s point of view could be that had he not been offered on a free, the chances of him staying for his final year would be higher, which would cost the club about £3m in wages, from what we hear his salary was. So maybe the club saw it as lose £3m to save £3m, and break even?
no one wanted him, especially not the bigger clubs. If they put a proce on him he might hve still been a NUFC player and its obvious h wasnt wanted there anymore. The free transfer was designed to get rid as i suspect the board knew they would be stuck with him
He has too much baggage and is to much of a mouth piece for a big club