Joseph Barton, the boy to Scott Brown's man (what does that make Andres Iniesta?), has turned over a new leaf at Ibrox. Unfortunately, the new leaf greatly resembles the old one.
Three days after Rangers' 5-1 defeat to Celtic on Saturday, Barton was embroiled in a training ground row with teammate Andy Halliday.
He was sent home from the training ground and told to stay away for the rest of the week.
What are we to make of such news? At times like this, we have to return to the words Barton quoted on his twitter when signing for Rangers.
To be a Ranger is to sense the sacred trust of upholding all that such a name means in this shrine of football. pic.twitter.com/nb5yTKq420
— Joseph Barton (@Joey7Barton) May 24, 2016
At the time, people thought that Joey was doing his customary Jacques-Jacques Liverot impersonation and going 'off on one' philosophically speaking. He was widely lampooned for embarrassing pretention.
But he was actually quoting the insufferably pompous words of Mr. Rangers Bill Struth, the manager under whom the club won about a thousand titles in the 20s and 30s and who insisted that players were suit and tie to training.
Barton, alas, conducts himself in training which might displease the author of those words.
