When Joey Barton arrived at Rangers in the summer, he did amidst a fanfare of self-proclaimed swagger. For so long the bad boy of the English game, he moved to Scotland and immediately attempted to stamp his authority on the game, choosing Celtic captain Scott Brown as his target of choice. “Without being disrespectful to the players up there, people keep talking about Joey Barton v Scott Brown. He’s not even in my league – he’s nowhere near the level of player I am,” the former Manchester City midfielder told Talksport in June.
“He can’t get near me. If I play well, Brown does not stand a chance. That’s not me being blasé – that’s just me stating what I believe.” These were the opening shots in a war of words that will come to a head on Saturday lunchtime, when the Old Firm match finally returns to the Scottish Premiership after an absence of four years. Barton may well have simply been playing the act of provocateur, aware of the Scotland midfielder’s combustible nature and seeking to plant a seed of frustration in order to secure a long-term gain, but regardless, his performances have been cause for concern.
The Englishman had put himself on a pedestal and was quickly made to look a fool as he was nutmegged by Hamilton’s Ali Crawford on the opening day of the season. Rangers toiled to a 1-1 draw. In many ways, Mark Warburton’s side will get it comparatively easy this season. With a budget far in excess of any other Scottish Premiership side, with the obvious exception of Celtic, the expectation levels are as modest as they are ever likely to be – at the outset of the season, many fans said they would settle for third or even fourth. This is just as well for Barton, whose wage, one must imagine, reflects upon his abilities with his mouth more than his feet in the early weeks of the campaign.
As he predicted, he has been something of a marked man. He was fortunate, for example, Kilmarnock’s Greg Taylor did not injure him with one particularly vicious challenge that resulted in a red card. While he deserves acclaim for the balanced way in which he handled that situation, the 34-year-old has done little more than fly into a few tough challenges of his own, albeit far more legitimately than some he has fallen victim to. Earlier in that match with Kilmarnock, which finished 1-1, Barton had been made to look positive foolish by 19-year-old Greg Kiltie, who breezed by him to set up an opening goal for Kris Boyd.
