More significantly, Barton was a liability off the pitch. Newcastle is hardly a club that thrives in the media spotlight, and Joey was usually the one that had us front and centre stage with our collective trousers down. It isn’t sustainable to have a player in open conflict with the board, far less a player so attracted to seeing his name in print. His new, clearly manufactured, faux-intellectual persona showed that he over-rated his own intelligence as much as he does his playing ability, and his interventions on Twitter were becoming irksome in the extreme. It is not to be regretted that he no longer draws such negative attention to our club.
The vacancy he left at the club has allowed the new, lower-key members of the squad space to integrate into a cohesive and effective team unit. We are a stronger squad, if not on paper, then in reality, for his exit.
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Much of what is true for Barton is true for Andy Carroll. At least in respect of his numerous engagements in controversial extra-curricular activities. My opinion on the morning of February 1st was that home-grown number 9s, built in the image of your club’s three biggest folk-heroes, shouldn’t be sold – no matter what the price. But for a defender staring up the pitch, the prospect of a long ball to the big man is a perennially attractive proposition. As well as not being particularly attractive to watch, it is only effective up to a point.
Very few teams have reached the upper-echelons of the league by being over-reliant on a lanky number 9 for knock-downs and flick-ons. Moreover, he is injury-prone, and there are inherent dangers in basing your entire game around a player who spends as much time on the treatment table as he does at the back-post. With more mobile centre-forwards, and a style of football focused on keeping possession and working the flanks, our play is not just more attractive, but more effective.
We were told that losing Nolan, Carroll and Barton would see our progress towards becoming a good Premier League side halted. However, the opposite has proved to be the case, facilitating a neater style of football, and a series of excellent results. Losing three of our best players hasn’t proved our breaking, but rather our making. Much, no doubt, to the chagrin of the nay-sayers and doom-mongers that had prematurely consigned us to an inevitable relegation struggle.
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