Joey Barton says Rangers would have beat Celtic to the league title quicker than they eventually did in 2021 had they listened to his advice years prior.
The Bristol Rovers boss has taken a scathing pop at his former club ahead of meeting Fleetwood Town tomorrow, who are managed by Celtic great Scott Brown. He caused controversy upon his 2016 arrival in Scotland, claiming he was the best player in the league. That stint lasted five games as the Hoops won a treble and he headed back down south to Burnley.
Barton claims he can still see errors he pointed out during his time at the club and although Celtic's dominance was stopped over 12 months ago when Steven Gerrard brought silverware to Rangers, it would have happened sooner under some of his self-proclaimed words of wisdom. He told the Scottish Sun: "I’ve obviously gone to Scotland and said ‘I’m going to be the best player up here’, which is probably the wrong thing for an Englishman to say.
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"But I’m confident if I stayed up there I would have delivered. I knew I was way above the average player that was in the division and I knew the only difficult game we’d have that season would be Celtic.
"I think all of us comfortably accept there is a monopoly on who can win trophies, and at that time Celtic were so far ahead. I went there to close the gap.
"I knew they were ahead because Rangers were in the Scottish Champ, but I genuinely believe if they f****** listened to me they would have won the league a lot quicker.
"It ended up being Stevie G and my cousin Tom (Culshaw) who ended up delivering 55 three years later. I’m still watching the same players I was criticising when I was in the building make the same mistakes, which is probably going to get the manager now, Gio van Bronckhorst the heave-ho relatively soon."
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