Joey Barton believes "short-term pain" will be worth it for Bristol Rovers, with the manager optimistic about his team's prospects despite a difficult start to the season.
Rovers are 21st in League One with eight points from the opening 10 games, with the start of the season marred by a series of injuries in defence. Those are unfortunate circumstances, but pressure – externally rather than from above – is increasing on Barton and Rovers to start moving up the table at this early stage of the campaign with a trip to Exeter City on Saturday next on the slate.
The Gas are winless in their past seven games, but with defenders Lewis Gibson, James Gibbons and James Connolly plus utility man Josh Grant closing in on returns to fitness, the manager believes he has the makings of a team that will go from strength to strength. And that is not just with this season in mind, with Barton indicating the loan recruitment strategy was influenced by players' attainability next summer on permanent deals.
He explained: "If we get a recognised defence in… You’re looking for continuity, certainly in the midfield and defensive parts. The front side of the team, if it gets a bit random you can kind of get away with that.
"I look at it and go ‘OK, we think we’ve got a really good young emerging side here. It’s going to take a little bit of time to get that out on the pitch and stabilised, but this year we’re a lot lower in loans. We’ve managed to convert a couple of lads into permanents.
"Even taking Lewis Gibson, it’s with one eye on the future. He’s somebody we’ve taken on loan that we think if we can do a good job with him and he doesn’t manage to make the grade at Everton that, having worked with him at Fleetwood, he would enjoy it again and want to commit to a longer-term position with us.
"I think he’s a really good player. The problem with that is we’re trying him out a bit because of his injury record and he’s new to Bristol and trying us out.
"For us, I think it’s having that patience of building a new team and putting a new group together. Short-term pain for medium and long-term gain is my take."
Barton has been frustrated this season in particular by an inability to implement his desired playing style. He has spoken about a 3-4-3 setup with ball players in defence and high intensity across the pitch, but without several of players that he considers to first-choice, he has turned to makeshift solutions.
Thus far, they have not yielded the desired points total, but Barton has complete confidence in the resources he will soon have at his disposal and the tactical plans he will ask them to execute.
"The good thing is when the lads look over from one pitch, they can see the light at the end of the tunnel and the lads know reinforcements are coming," he added.
"You already know what good players they are. We think when those boys are back and consistently available and that team beds down, we think we will have a very competent team for League One with the front side of the team still to drop in.
"I think in the near future, you will see what the ideology was. At this moment in time, I haven’t been able to get it on the pitch and fingers crossed we can get it because it’s a different way than we played last year, but for League One I think it will be really effective."
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