IF ONLY Joey Barton was as attention-grabbing on the pitch as he is off it then maybe Rangers would be seeing some value for their money right now.
Sadly for the self-styled best player in Scotland, someone who would walk into our national team, and the man in a different league to Scott Brown, he is not cutting it.
The 33-year-old Liverpudlian was awful at Rugby Park on Friday and yet was only substituted because he was already on a yellow card. Indeed, his only memorable moment came when Kilmarnock’s Greg Taylor put in a dreadful challenge on him which resulted in a deserved straight dismissal. Apart from that incident and a couple of touches, you could easily have forgotten he was on the pitch.
Read more: Clint Hill: If we start slowly against Celtic then we are asking for big trouble
After the match, his manager Mark Warburton said that his big-name summer signing was not a marked man. I beg to differ. It has not taken long for the Ladbrokes Premiership to see, to borrow a phrase from Barton’s favourites The Smiths, that the bigmouth is not striking.
In fact, he is not doing much at all and this is not good enough for Rangers who should not be viewed as a lucrative last hurrah for has-beens who fancy a bit of an adventure. There are sure to be one or two more who would relish the chance to keep him quiet.
“If I get to that level [his best] then, unfortunately for everyone up there, they will not be able to live with me,” said Barton in the summer in one of his hourly interviews with talkSPORT. Well, Kilmarnock’s Greg Kiltie must be a world-beater given the ease with which he flew past Barton in the lead up to the home side’s first-half goal in the 1-1 draw on Friday.
Yes, Barton is always going to provide something – a nice pass here or there – but surely this is not enough.
What must Andy Halliday think?
He has hardly put a foot wrong at the club and yet a midfielder who is not playing well is preferred to him.
Warburton has a decision to make. Does he start Barton against Celtic
or Halliday – who was outstanding in the Scottish Cup semi-final last season? Because if the Englishman struggled to get a grip of Kilmarnock, how is he going to cope in the cauldron of Parkhead?
It was not the best week for our Joseph who began it by criticising, of all things, Brendan Rodgers’s appearance.
The relevance of this escapes me.
It has been my pleasure to have met and dealt with many Ibrox legends. The greatest of them all, John Greig, would never have said a bad word about Celtic. Ally McCoist seemed to score in every Old Firm game and yet his amiable nature meant his relationship with the other half was built on mutual respect and tolerance.
Willie Henderson and Jimmy Johnstone opted to become best pals instead of enemies since they had so much in common.
Perhaps the most gentlemanly of all, though, was the late and much-missed Sandy Jardine who epitomised all that is good about the club, football and life in general. Could you imagine Sandy publicly slagging off a Celtic manager?
Barton was not only being disrespectful to Celtic; he was sticking two fingers up to Scottish football because clearly he considers himself to be of a higher level. He also had a go at Celtic for just reaching the Champions League. Once more, I’m struggling to see the point there.
Plenty of players have moved from England to Govan over the years.
One of the very best was Steven Davis who kept his mouth shut, his head down and turned out to be a real class act. The same could be said for Alex Rae. Neither player had the profile of Barton but I know who most of the Rangers fans would rather have in the team a week on Saturday.
Something has to change or Celtic could be over the horizon before Warburton even notices. If Celtic win the Old Firm game then they will go four points clear with a game in hand, which is Partick Thistle at home. Rangers have given Hamilton,
Dundee, Motherwell and, on Friday, Kilmarnock a full half of football to do what they want. They have eight points from 12 and are slightly fortunate to have that amount after four games against teams who could all finish in the bottom six.
Those supporters who, whenever they hear criticism of their club, man the barricades and scream defiance need to take a deep breath and ask themselves whether they are happy with how the team is playing.
Niko Kranjcar needs to start, as does Halliday, and Jason Holt has been amiss. Martyn Waghorn’s absence has been keenly felt. Joe Garner did himself no favours with his dive at Rugby Park and yet he showed enough on his debut to suggest he is going to bring something to the party.
Young Jordan Rossiter has done so well that, against Kilmarnock, he was the deep lying midfielder, which pushed Barton to the left which is not where he wants to be. Harry Forrester has also come good. The defence is still poor – Philippe Senderos ought to be a good signing – but it is not as if Rangers are an awful team, just one not functioning as it should because some players appear to be above being dropped.
Barton is fighting for his place.
It is not good enough for a player to join Rangers, stroll about as if they own the place, talk down the Scottish game but then not deliver on the park.
He might think such judgment is unfair in August; however, that is life
at a genuinely big club with huge expectations. Barton has to show he is up to the challenge and not just good for a few quotes about Nietzsche.
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