Speaking to the This Is Ibrox podcast, former Rangers manager Mark Warburton has addressed Joey Barton’s failed stint in Glasgow.
Barton was Warburton’s headline signing ahead of the 2016/17 Scottish Premiership campaign, as the Gers looked to mount a title challenge against Celtic.
Competing with the Hoops immediately after returning to the top flight was always going to be a difficult task, though, and Barton certainly didn’t deliver.
The midfielder turned out just eight times for the Gers before he was internally disciplined for a training ground tussle with Andy Halliday and his contract was terminated just two months later.
Warburton has defended the rationale behind the transfer but accepts that it didn’t go to plan.
“If you look at the season before, he was outstanding for Burnley,” he said on the This Is Ibrox podcast. “We did so much research. Met with Joey on several occasions – he was hungry and he can be very articulate and intelligent about the game – as I say, he was in the Championship Team of the Year and could have stayed at Burnley. I knew we had to really galvanise the Ibrox fanbase.”
“I put my hand up. If I looked at it again and followed the same process, there’s nothing more I could have done in terms of due diligence and we would have probably reached the same conclusion.
“Did it work? No, absolutely no. Joey will be the first to say it didn’t work and I’ll be the first to say it didn’t work.
“The was no transfer fee involved, we weren’t paying £2 million to bring Joey Barton to come up. I wanted that really strong figure and for a number of reasons it didn’t work.”
Verdict
It’s interesting to see Warburton speak at length here about the work that went into bringing Joey Barton to Rangers.
The transfer undoubtedly proved disastrous, with Barton looking like a fish out of water in his final game for the club in a 5-1 hammering at Celtic Park in September 2016.
There were warning signs before his arrival too, with media commitments ensuring he didn’t benefit from a full pre-season.
However, it’s clear that the manager had been given a meagre budget to work with and it’s possible to see the logic behind the decision to recruit a fiery character like Barton to try to toughen up the Gers midfield.
The current Fleetwood Town boss had been in excellent form the season prior to his move to Glasgow but ultimately wasn’t able to meet the very high expectations of the Rangers fanbase.
