Joey Barton believes he made a "mistake" offering Trevor Clarke a new contract after telling the player he has no future at Bristol Rovers just two months on from signing a two-year deal with the club.
Clarke was among three players the manager exiled from his first-team squad on Monday, with Zain Westbrooke and Alex Rodman also told to find new clubs. Clarke's case, in particular, has divided opinion among the fanbase, with many believing he had impressed in pre-season and questioning Barton's decision.
The 24-year-old Irishman joined from Rotherham United last summer, but he was restricted to just nine appearances in all competitions last season due to a series of injuries. With the former Shamrock Rovers left-back reaching the end of his initial 12-month deal in June, the Gas had a one-year option in their favour but instead renegotiated terms for a two-year deal.
With Josh Grant enduring an injury-hit pre-season and Nick Anderton diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer, Clarke had an uncontested run at the left-back spot and started in the opening day defeat to Forest Green Rovers on Saturday. But after that game, Barton told reporters he did not view Clarke as a regular starter in his team this season.
Rumours emerged early in the week that Clarke, Westbrooke and Rodman had been informed they were no longer in the manager's plans and at Thursday's pre-match press conference before the trip to Burton Albion, Barton confirmed that was the case.
Westbrooke has long been a fringe player at the Mem, spending the second half of last season on loan at Stevenage, while Rodman played just four times last season due to injury. News of their futures, therefore, prompted little surprise among Gasheads but Clarke's exile raised questions.
"He’s a good kid," Barton said when explaining his decision. "He just can’t play the position how I want it played. Last year, we didn’t see a lot of him due to his physical state.
"He came in this summer after the back end of the season and he got the bit between his teeth and he was saying he really wanted to get after it in the summer and the off-season. He’s come back in and he’s had a lot of reps because we’ve been light in that position with Josh (Grant) being unavailable.
"For me, he just doesn’t fill me with trust going forward. If I’m honest, I don’t trust him. I don’t think he’s the right component for us. We want to pass out, we want to play, and he’s not that type of full-back.
"Unfortunately, we extended his deal and sometimes you’ve got to be very quick to recognise and I hold my hands up. I’ve made a mistake on that one, I shouldn’t have brought him back in. If I had my time again, I wouldn’t have done that, but we have and we’ve got to find a solution, firstly for Trev and, obviously, for the club.
"I don’t think he’ll have a problem. I think there will be many suitors for him. He’s obviously done well in the League of Ireland and he could pop back out there, but that will be somebody else’s problem and he won’t go forward with us."
In instructing Clarke to find a new club, Barton has Harry Anderson and James Gibbons as his options to take the left-back spot at the Pirelli Stadium on Saturday. Anderson played in that role several times last season and versatile Gibbons played across the defence in his time at Port Vale.
Barton also revealed on Thursday the Gas were taking a close look at a left-back on trial, although he has an option at a Premier League club in their under-23s setup.
Barton continued: "I’ve been telling Trev all summer ‘I don’t trust you, you’re doing stuff in training, you’re not doing what I’m asking you do to, your retention of information I’m struggling with because how many times am I going to show you?’ He’s not 17 or 19, he’s 24 so at some point the penny has got to drop and after doing a year’s worth of work with him last year I just got to the point where we need to pull up stumps here and just draw a line under it.
"It’s not fair on him because he had a similar theme at Rotherham where he’s not played minutes, he’s had a similar theme here where he has not played minutes.
"He could go back home. His family is in Ireland and he could probably play in the League of Ireland, he’s probably got enough ability to play there. He might get another opportunity in England, I don’t know.
"But putting someone in the team like Westy and Trev, who you don’t trust, is not fair on them. We have to put them in because we’re light on bodies and they also know that you don’t trust them and they also know that their fans don’t trust them.
"I think we’re all in agreement about Zain. He’s had so many opportunities, the amount of times under other managers as well and it just hasn’t happened for him here. He’s not a bad player and not a bad kid, but at some point, you’ve just got to remove him and allow young players to come in and have an opportunity."
Barton revealed that Rovers will be moving forward with the squad they have, plus as many as eight new signings as he targets a busy end to the transfer window.
Barton was asked how his players had responded to the group being trimmed this week.
"I think like in everything, a cull every now and then is good, so you have to cull the populous and that usually happens at the end of the window or at the end of a season," he replied.
"I think everyone here was going ‘Am I coming or am I going? The gaffer’s talking about six or seven signings in’ and all of a sudden you get in on Monday and they see three people leave the building. Amazingly, everybody settles down because they’re like ‘I’ve made the grade’.
"When we speak to the lads, we say this is the group we’re going to go forward with. Yeah, we’re short and we’re going to keep adding to that, and yeah there are some young kids here but we want to try to get them some more experience, and experience for them sometimes is just training with the first team, but if you’ve got five or six senior players hanging around they’ll join in and the young kids stay down at the academy.
"I feel the group has benefited from it. It’s just settled the group because everybody who is here now knows they are really fancied."
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