Josh Barrett, the secret snus society, Luke Thomas, Zain Westbrooke, Trevor Clarke, Alex Rodman, Sylvester Jasper, Bobby Thomas, James Belshaw, Aaron Collins - the list is long and becoming increasingly more distinguished as it’s extended, seemingly on a weekly basis, by Joey Barton.
What unites these Bristol Rovers players, past, present and temporary, of course, is they’ve all at some stage been called out to varying degrees by Barton for various indiscretions, major and minor. But while each case is different and unique, what unites them beyond being thrust into the public domain is, with possibly one or two exceptions, the reasons are essentially the same - a betrayal of the culture he is trying to instil at the club.
In the boss’ eyes, each one has done something, either on the field at the training ground or displayed an attitude that has run contrary to the environment he has created at the club; whether that being Jasper not happy with his lack of minutes, Barrett’s lax approach to professionalism, Thomas’ apparent inability to be vocal on the pitch or, most recently and profoundly, Collins decision not to properly compete for a header.
That is perhaps trivialising it a bit, because as Barton outlined on Tuesday night, after the 2-0 defeat to Wycombe Wanderers, and again on Thursday afternoon at The Quarters, as captain for his team there are certain obligations and non-negotiable expectations that you have to conform to - ducking a header, and the potential impact that has on your teammates is not one of them.
Of course, there are few fans who would take issue to that particular thought-process. What continues to drive the discourse among Gasheads is Barton’s openness in laying it all out there. Often, as was the case on Tuesday, without him being directly asked about it.
He went into greater detail two days later in the media room at The Quarters, and what’s always interesting about his rationale for such is that he never says it with any stress, anger or emphasis on certain words, it’s all delivered with an almost unsettling calm and the straightest of faces, to the point you don’t often don’t fully realise the full extent of what’s being said until you listen back.
And while supporters may take issue with how his criticism of Collins is being presented, or the potential impact on the star striker in the short, medium and long-term, quite frankly, Barton doesn’t seem to care.
“I live a life of radical honesty,” Barton said. “It’s my way of charting through the world. We’ll all end up in the ground or on a bonfire at some point and you’ve got to travel through the world making the best of it as you see fit.
“For me, from a young age I just decided I was going to be truthful. It gets you in some scrapes but also, I’m a 40-year-old multi-millionaire who’s already achieved one dream and that’s to be an England international Premier League footballer who is now on his path to achieving his second dream and that is to be an elite-level coach. So, it’s worked out alright for me. Okay, I’ve had a few scrapes with it.
“I say to the lads, my job is to tell you the truth. A lot of the time they listen to people who have never left the house; I’ve climbed the mountain you want to climb, and there’s no shortcuts.
“The lads want a pill off the internet or something they can buy that’s this quick shortcut to success. The reality of it is, people like me just reminding you, ‘no there’s not, you’ve got to work every moment, every day, and even then they might not reward you’. But if you’re not prepared for that and you’re waiting for a lightning bolt or a meteorite to fall out of the sky and hit you, good luck with that decision.
“For me, I think you can forge and make your own destiny and make yourself an incredible success but there’s a price to pay for it and you’ve got to be prepared to sacrifice lots of the things that most people don’t want to sacrifice, and that’s why most people don’t achieve what they dream of achieving when they’re young people.
“It’s not about niceties. I do want to come in and be everyone’s friend and get on with everyone, the world is a lot easier (that way), but unfortunately that’s not going to make me successful in this job.
“The world is not a fair place and if you’re sitting and waiting for fairness to come around and deal your fair share of luck to you, then you’re going to have a tough existence. You’ve got to go out, take the world by the horns and bend it to your will.
“You’re listening to people, and the people advising you who have never left their own house. They’re trying to tell you what’s out in the world. Go speak to people who have actually travelled and see what you need. They won’t tell you what you want to hear but if you just stay in the confines of your own house, you’ll just molly-coddled and everything’s alright and it’ll be someone else’s fault.”
The absolute brutal and often uncomfortable reality Barton likes to expose his players to is made all that more stark by the experiences of one of their teammates, as Nick Anderton’s cancer diagnosis continues to drive this team in ways beyond their love and support for the defender as he undergoes chemotherapy.
Barton admits a number of players, not just Collins, have been low this week in the wake of the defeat to Wycombe and questioning their own individual form but a reminder of Anderton’s situation is a means of putting it in perspective.
“Luke McCormick’s down this week because he lasted seven minutes in a game and hasn’t been given minutes on a Tuesday,” Barton added. “James Connolly’s feeling a bit low and Antony Evans isn’t in the team, Aaron’s a bit low because of his performance in the last couple of games and then I just show them a picture of Nick and say, ‘that’s pressure’.
"That man there, having poison put into his body just to survive, just to be a father for his kids. “He’s had his career taken away, he’s not a multi-millionaire; not playing well as a sportsman isn’t pressure.
“Jim Cassell who was our academy director at Manchester City told me, if you play sport for a living it’s a bonus if you happen to be good at it. Most people would kill for that opportunity.
“I see our lads moping around and feeling pressure and they’re in their car and going home and watching tele or playing computer games, or whatever they’re doing, pressure for me is seeing Nick Anderton and what he’s having to go through just to be alive and be a parent and be around for his wife and kids.”
In the conversation around Collins outside of the club, there has been some of the point lost. Granted, stripping him of the captaincy and twice broadcasting your frustrations to the world in painful detail may seem harsh (which it is) but it’s clearly being done for reasons beyond the Welshman. It also wasn’t said as an excuse for the loss at the Mem to the Chairboys, more a verbal illustration of what the team was potentially lacking.
With Rovers just a few results shy of reaching Barton’s 52-point target for definite League One survival, and having picked up after their February lull, there is clear concern among the coaching staff that eyes may be taken off the ball.
Having all-but achieved their third tier status for 2023/24 which, removing the bluster and bravado of the manager around his desire for promotion, is an achievement to some degree using the rest of the promoted sides as context, naturally there may be a slight dropping off in terms of performance as the games don’t matter quite as much as they did before.
Should that happen, it will become even more pronounced over these remaining 10 games, with eight sides to face all above them in the table and seven of which still credibly competing for promotion - starting with Portsmouth on Saturday who retain an outside chance of gate-crashing the top six.
Rovers function best when they’re operating with the sort of maximum intensity you’d expect a Barton team to play. If that falls away by any kind of percentage, they suddenly lose a lot of their identity and poor results follow.
Therefore making an example of Collins, by all accounts Rovers’ “star player”, it’s a clear message to the rest of the squad that such an attitude can’t and won’t be tolerated and this next block of games could then have far-reaching consequences beyond where the Gas finish in the table.
“Playing poorly or making a mistake on the football pitch will feel like the end of the world to some lads, because pressure is relative, but you have to sometimes open up the perspective and say, look, we’ve got 10 games here, 45 points on the board, barring an absolute collapse between now and the end of the season you’re going to be League One players next season, go and enjoy it and show, ‘can you kick on?’” Barton said.
“That’s what I’m looking for, who can come on this journey with us? Because my intention is to get this football club out of this division next year, alright we’ve not managed to get in the promotion race but we’ve had a little peer over the wall, there was a time we were riding high in the table.
"I may now need to see who can come on the journey because if we play like Wycombe next season, who are going to be in our division and are going to be top 10, you need to see who can hang with those streetwise, physical teams.
"Because if you want to get out of this division, they’re the teams that you have to finish ahead of. For me now, certainly going into the games we’ve got it’s promotion-thinking teams; that’ll give us a really good idea of the job we’ve got to do to be one of those teams in the future.”
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