I’m pretty sure everyone who knows anything about football will know about the past Joey Barton has in the sport and nobody needs reminding of the many negative acts he has been involved in. However after seeing the papers today it is hard not to feel a little sorry for the midfielder for the way that he is now portrayed in the press at all times.
As the dust settled on the Reading VS QPR game last night and both teams came to terms with the thought that they now faced Championship football next year the outspoken Barton who is on loan at Marseille from QPR weighed in with his thoughts on the situation at the club on Twitter.
Whilst I sat refreshing my timeline Joey Barton started to make more and more sense, it is easy to see from his tweets last night that he still has some feelings left in London and he was clearly disappointed that the team he is contracted too have been relegated from the top flight. He pointed out on the social media site that he was disappointed to see players not showing the passion and emotion the situation and the club deserved.
Barton claimed that the club was let down by a lot of players not having the guts to battle to stay in the league as they didn’t have the passion for the side.
Although he may have crossed the line when he tweeted “Gutted for the club. Too many w*****s amongst the playing staff. All brought in by (former manager Mark) Hughes.” He clearly felt he has a point and it is one that is out there for all to see however the media have taken that comment and hung him out to dry on it.
He also tweeted “I can’t believe QPR have just been relegated and [Jose] Bosingwa was walking down the tunnel laughing!” He then went onto add “Believe it or not I am actually gutted for QPR – I reckon more than some of the current playing squad.”
However the more cynical side of the press has been shown as they have jumped on the outspoken Barton’s thoughts on Twitter and his tweets have been taken way out of context claiming his mild comments were in fact an ‘x-rated attack’ on the club.
Although his past has led him to be in this situation it does seem that whenever Barton has something to say the media have a field day and he has become a little bit of a scapegoat. Some people may disagree and think that Barton deserves all he gets but I sympathise with Joey Barton as I think last night he was simply putting out there how he felt about the club … ‘gutted.’
It seems to me today that the press have made a mountain out of a mole hill over his tweets purely because of his reputation and that is a sad situation for the player to be in.