Joey Barton had an unexpected visitor at Vale Park in the wake of Bristol Rovers’ brilliant win last month, as one of his proudest projects came to say hello having also inadvertently influenced one of the Gas’ big success stories this season.
In January 2019, a tall and rangy centre-back called Harry Souttar joined Fleetwood Town on loan, possessing plentiful talent but little EFL experience, and over the subsequent 18 months Barton and his coaching team transformed him into one of the best defenders in the third tier.
Returning to Stoke in the summer of 2020, Souttar has since blossomed into one of the Championship’s most consistent performers in the position and, as a result, when Rovers came calling last summer, they were first in the queue to take Connor Taylor from the Potters.
Admittedly a league lower, but Taylor appears on a similar trajectory to Souttar, with the 20-year-old having experienced an outstanding campaign in blue and white and will return to Stoke a considerably better and more rounded player.
Speaking to the Official A-Leagues Podcast, Scottish-born Australian international Souttar outlined the influence Barton has had on his career.
“I caught up with Joey Barton a couple of weeks ago when his team were at Port Vale," he said. "They are flying right now. He was great, unbelievable for me. He gave me my chance in English football, League One and in terms of what I want from a manager he was great.
“He was very black and white, he’ll say what he wants you to do for the team, you know your role down to a tee and I think that’s why we had such a successful season. We had a great dressing room and I loved that 18 months there. He’s flying at Bristol Rovers now and best of luck to him and the guys down there.”
Taylor is set to return to Stoke at the end of the season where Potters manager Michael O’Neill has admitted he will bring him into his pre-season schedule before making an assessment on if the 20-year-old is ready for Championship action, similar to the judgement made on Souttar in 2020.
But there’s every chance, should be down the centre-back hierarchy that Stoke feel his development is best served with more time out on loan, and should Rovers manage to secure promotion to League One, that surely puts them in an excellent position to take Taylor for another significant period of time.
"The only comparison they really have is they’re both really tall, they both play for Stoke and they’re both defenders, so I can see how it easily gets into," Barton said last month.
"For Connor to be compared to Harry by his club manager is an enormous tip of the cap to him, because Harry’s 18 months with us at Fleetwood were absolutely superb and then he has gone and had a really good spell in Stoke’s first team and become a major player for them before he picked up a cruciate ligament injury.
"So to hear Michael speak about Connor in the same ilk is really pleasing. It’s the reason you bring lads on loan and clearly the reason Stoke are trusting you with their young players."
SIGN UP: For our newsletter to receive more exclusive Bristol Rovers content
