The curious story of Joey Barton continues

Some footballers are quiet individuals who may do their talking on the park but say little else off it. In the ever increasing glare of the media, many footballers are finding it far more sensible to keep a low profile and to avoid dragging too much attention on themselves. This does not apply to Joey Barton though and the player is one who has been constantly in the media spotlight for his actions both and off the field. Joey has obviously did many things wrong in his life but he has served his time for many of the misdemeanours and there is no doubt that his on the field performances for Newcastle United have been very good.

Newcastle have lost experience this summer

This makes it all the more surprising that rather than offer him a new contract or at least let him run down his contract, Newcastle have decided that Barton can go on a free transfer to any club that wants to take him off their hands. Joey Barton has been speaking out about the way Newcastle have been run all summer and he has been dismayed at some of the big name players that have been let go. Kevin Nolan took a step down the football ladder to go to West Ham United but it seems that the former Bolton legend was more than happy to do this.

Twitter allows Barton to vent

Barton has been using twitter as the main source for his frustrations and he has been criticising team-mates and others at the club for a lack of effort and pride. These comments have chimed with the opinions of the Geordie faithful and many appear to be thinking along the same lines as Joey Barton. This leaves the club looking bad in the eyes of the fans who even if they agree he has to go to maintain balance at the club, will be unhappy with the fact that Barton is being released for free. Given that the Newcastle board managed to extract £35 from Liverpool for Andy Carroll, it would not be unreasonable to think that some money could have been obtained for Joey Barton, unless there has been a lot more going on that hasn’t been reported.

At the moment, there is no real news about where Barton is likely to end up but the player and his agent, Willie McKay, think that a weekly wage of around £60,000 to £75,000 should not be beyond a player of Barton’s ability. There were also comments made by the agents stating that if Arsenal had Barton last season, they would have won the league.

That is big talk but a lot of people will be looking on interestedly to see where Barton ends up.

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