BARTON SHOWS TRUE COLORS; NOW ASHLEY MUST ACT

Remember this tweet from @Joey7Barton back on July 31?

"Things need addressing as am not prepared to go through a relegation again."

Judging from the fact Joey Barton looks set to join Queens Park Rangers on a free transfer - with a lucrative multi-year contract the main attraction - the opinionated midfielder doesn't seem to be overly concerned with relegation anymore.

Not to knock QPR, but barring a major spending spree over the next week, it looks like a definite relegation candidate that will be battling at the bottom of the table all season long. But the chance for one last big payday appears to be enough for Barton to overlook that.

So for me, Barton's greed and ego were the primary causes behind the saga that's led us to this point. It's not that Newcastle United's hierarchy hasn't made mistakes over the past few years; we all know that's not true. But Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias' biggest error in dealing with Barton this summer was not trying to get rid of him earlier.

Barton has become a bigger pain in the ass over the past eight months - his first good season since coming to Newcastle seemed to unduly embolden him - while at the same time he's become less of a factor on the field. With Andy Carroll gone and an influx of foreign players, Alan Pardew has repeatedly said he wants to change Newcastle's style of play to a more possession-based game.

Barton is best-suited for a direct style, where he can operate from deep and hit long diagonals and early crosses. It's also become painfully obvious that he's no longer a central midfielder, simply because he doesn't have the speed to cover the necessary ground. When he plays on the right side of the midfield, where he has the luxury of floating inside to get separation from the opposition's left winger and fullback, he generally gets more time on the ball.

Newcastle has enough candidates to take over Barton's spot in the starting XI, between Gabriel Obertan, Dan Gosling, Sylvain Marveaux and even young Haris Vuckic. While none of them are proven in the Premier League, all are much more mobile and don't bring the sort of constant red-card risk that Barton does every game.

The real key is whether the savings from jettisoning Barton - reportedly about £60,000 a week - will spur Ashley and Llambias into action on the recruitment front. Offloading Barton on the cheap puts even more PR-pressure on them to land a left back and a striker in the final seven days of the summer transfer window. United has adequate replacements for Barton; it still needs to find some for Carroll and Jose Enrique.

Comments

[Blef]

Sorry, I don't agree. I think Barton has been treated awfully by Ashley, the same as Given, Milner, Carroll and Nolan. I think they were forced to leave a club they would have been happy to stay at. Ashley's contempt for everyone at NUFC is clear to see. I honestly think Barton would be happy to stay at NUFC, but Ashley has told him he has no future here. If your boss told you that, where you work after dismissing several of your close, and well performing colleagues, how would you react?

[Tom]

Everyone's certainly entitled to their own opinion, but I don't get this regular job analogy people keep using about Barton. Would my boss be telling me this after I had spent part of my tenure at the company in jail? Would I have been one of the top earners at the company, only to be unproductive for my first three years?

Ashley has dicked up plenty of decisions, but I don't think getting rid of Barton is one of them.