It hasn’t been the best of weeks for Joey Barton.
Firstly, the QPR midfielder, in a series of tweets, strongly talked down any notion that Liverpool midfielder Jordan Henderson could potentially succeed Steven Gerrard and ended up in an exchange with Jamie Carragher.
Barton, who spend the previous day talking about how to be effective captain, then skippered his side against Hull and got sent-off for attempting to hit Tom Huddlestone with a low-blow, flicked jab. QPR ended up losing the game 2-1 and today Barton’s week just got worse.
QPR manager Chris Ramsey has said that the midfielder should probably consider anger management and Charlie Austin believes ‘villian’ Barton cost his side on Saturday.
‘It [anger management] is something I would discuss with the player and see what he’s open to,’ Ramsey said after the game. ‘The medical staff are very good here so I’m sure a whole range of things have been discussed with him in his career’.
‘He’s quite an intelligent lad and I’m sure he would be open to anything that he thought could help him. We’ll have a discussion in the cold light of day away from this incident and see where we go next’.
While QPR striker Austin said: ‘There’s only so many times you can say sorry. ‘It’s a silly sending-off and it’s kind of cost us the game. He’s the villain and rightly so for getting sent off.
‘He’s got to deal with it. He’s going to miss the next three games and he’s an important player for us, he’s our captain. We move on now’.
Barton apologised for his red card, the ninth of his career, after the game, admitting his actions were ‘stupid but not malicious’. ‘I was sitting in there for a couple of hours just thinking how stupid it was,’ Barton said.
‘The sickener for me, as someone who puts the team above everything else, is that I’ve let the team down’.
It seems the only silver lining for Barton is this piece of sage wisdom from Hull manager Steve Bruce.
Hat-Tip The Daily Mail & The Daily Telegraph.
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