Joey Barton believes Bristol Rovers' aim to be competing in and around League One's top six next season is "certainly attainable" after being underwhelmed by promotion-chasing opponents Sheffield Wednesday and Derby County.
Off the back of Saturday's deserved draw with the Rams, Barton's Gas acquitted themselves well again against third-placed Sheffield Wednesday, suffering a narrow 2-1 defeat at the Mem on Tuesday after John Marquis had an equaliser controversially ruled out for offside in the closing stages.
Barton's frustration with referee Josh Smith and his assistants was high in the moment as a three-game unbeaten run came to an end, but looking at the big picture, he sees no reason why the club cannot compete near the top end of League One next term – despite the greater spending power of other clubs – having consolidated their place this season.
"Look, I think Sheff Wed are third tonight and after playing against them, and I say this with the greatest respect to them, but they are not easy on the eye, are they?" Barton said. "What did they have, 180 passes or something? I know they’ve beaten us 2-1, but if you play that type of football, that ain’t going to keep you in the Championship.
"I keep saying this about teams but they have got big resources, big resource pools, but I said to the lads in there, ‘That’s the bar, they are the automatic promotion bar’. Derby were the play-off bar of where we need to be if we want to be successful in our challenge next season.
"I don’t worry about us building a team capable of challenging if that’s the benchmark. I know they’ve 12, 14, £15million budgets, the last two opponents, but the standard at this level is certainly attainable for us if we find a bit more maturity in our performance and we get a bit more consistency, which I think will come from lads accumulating minutes and experience.
"We have just got to keep building on the solid foundations of, from our perspective, a successful season. Getting in the division was key, but consolidating and staying the division which the lads have done with games to spare, now the lads get a taste of the top end of the division and there is absolutely nothing to fear if Derby and Sheffield Wednesday are to go by."
Barton accepts Wednesday executed the basics better on the night, with both goals conceded in avoidable fashion. Jarell Quansah was guilty of giving the ball away in his own third, leading to Barry Bannan's 28th-minute opener, and Akin Famawo doubled the advantage four minutes before half time from a poorly-defended corner.
Aaron Collins mustered an immediate response within seconds of the resumption, slotting his 16th league goal of the campaign.
Barton knows his team cannot afford to make defensive mistakes at the same rate next season, although he says that is part of the challenge when having to rely on younger players in key positions.
"Of course, and that’s what they’re getting paid 10, 12, 14 grand a week for," he added of the Owls' execution of the fundamentals on Tuesday. "Bannan will probably be on 25 grand a week, Josh Windass probably in the same boat. Smith and Gregory will be 6-10 grand a week. Palmer, you keep adding this up and that’s what you get. You buy that experience.
"We have to go and take loans and younger players on £1,000 a week or £2,000 a week and you get what you pay for in our game. There’s a saying that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys and it’s true. Pep Guardiola is the best coach in the world, but he has spent £2billion to get those resources.
"Sheffield Wednesday and Derby, they have got vast resources, but you can see the MO. I’m always mindful of where you come from and what you’re trying to do. They have got to get promoted, those types of teams with the fanbase and the budgets, but then they’ve got to sustain Championship football beyond and hopefully one day kick on and challenge to become a Premier League club, which both of them have been in the past.
"They have got their way of doing it, but for us, we’ve got to realise how close we are to those teams. We do it in a slightly different way and there are bits of their game, that streetwise, heading the ball out of the box stuff they do really well, but we also have to build on the good stuff.
"We’ve had 1,100 passes against Derby County, who were First Division winners, and a former Premier League club in Sheffield Wednesday, and without being disrespectful to Paul Warne or Darren Moore, our budget is £3.5million. Give me £6-8m, they won’t see the football.
"The reality of it is they have got £12-14m worth of players and unfortunately in our game, money talks."
Wednesday finished the night in third, behind Plymouth Argyle and Ipswich Town in the race for automatic promotion. Rovers remained 15th in the table with their third-tier status effectively confirmed due to their vastly superior goal difference over Cambridge United in the final relegation place, who sit 12 points behind the Gas with four games remaining.
Barton admitted in hindsight his decision before kick-off to play with a back three did not give his team the best chance of winning the game.
With Jarell Quansah back from a three-game suspension, Barton veered away from the back four setup that has served Rovers well of late, but he quickly reverted at half time with a triple substitution, which saw his team score immediately and offer more of an attacking threat.
"The control of the football, we had lots of control for the first 30 minutes and Jarell makes a mistake, probably because he’s not knocked in," he said
"I have to accept that maybe I’ve overthought that a bit tactically. I knew they were going to load and pump the ball long to the two big lads and they cause you a problem, so I wanted to have three defenders to deal with that but I don’t think the shape suited us.
"As a manager, I have to accept that tactically. I change the shape in the second half and we get back in it."
With five games left in the campaign, Barton wants to learn as much about his players as possible as planning for next season ramps up.
"We’re trying things at the minute," he concluded. "I was tempted to put Jed Ward on at half time, just to get him the experience because we might as well learn something from this spell.
"Positions in the team are up for grabs and I need to learn who can come on this journey with us next year. The lads are always auditioning and nobody is safe or guaranteed a place here next season because we’ve got to get better and improve.
"I’m really pleased with lots of the past 180 minutes against two really big football clubs, but we’ve got to be cuter and cleverer at times and stop giving ourselves goal deficits or two-goal deficits to overcome."
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