HIDE & BLEAK
Thistle star Barton tells his team-mates to take more responsibility as he puts boot into Accies and Well for playing nasty football that’s giving our game a bad rep
ADAM BARTON has let rip at his team-mates and the ugly standard of Scottish football as he urged Partick Thistle’s hiding players to stand up and be counted.
The Jags midfielder reckons harsh realities must be faced by every man in the squad if they are to haul themselves off the foot of the Premiership.
Rooted at rock bottom – two points off Ross County and four adrift of 10th-placed Dundee – the Jags know today’s home clash with Hamilton is vital to reduce the risk of being detached from the rest.
If it is anything like their last encounter in Hamilton, a dour goalless draw, Barton is bracing himself for a war of attrition that will do little to enhance the league’s reputation.
In troubled times like this, sometimes there is little alternative to rolling up the sleeves and getting stuck in but he insists that means every member of the team having the courage to show themselves in the heat of battle.
Barton said: “We’ve had meetings with the manager and as a team and a lot of players love this stuff because it helps them.
“For me it’s a case of, ‘Why don’t you do what you need to do and I’ll do what I need to do? I know my job so I’ll do my job and you do your job’.
“If I’m doing really well at my job I can come and help someone else but it’s about doing your own job first.
“Someone once said to me you’ll never see a good player play when the team is doing badly. If you have individuals playing badly and making errors all the time then it’s going to make other players look bad.
“For example I get frustrated that when players lose confidence they don’t really want to show for the ball. So when I get on the ball and need options there’s almost no point in me having it if I’ve no one to pass it to.
“Then I end up losing it and fans watching from the stand think ‘he’s playing rubbish today’ but you need to look at it from the other perspective that he’s not got the options.
“If we can get seven players playing well that would be enough for this team to win games but there are too many individual errors just now.
“We are giving penalties and sloppy goals away and not clearing our lines as well as we should do. That’s taking us from a strong, solid team that didn’t concede many goals to now leaking goals for fun.
“Yes, it’s a team game but you have to take responsibility for yourself. If you get a move then you don’t take your team with you. I’ll say that and I’ll be ruthless about that.
“If Philippe Coutinho goes to Barcelona he’s not going to take Roberto Firmino or Jordan Henderson with him is he? He’s done that himself. But then again he’s had his team-mates around him to help him do that.
“First and foremost you’ve got to look at yourself, stop making individual errors. You win your battle and you’ll be surprised that if seven people do that in a game,you will get your wins.”
Battle is an appropriate word for the challenge Barton is preparing himself for today, judging by his scathing view of the approach taken by Hamilton and their Lanarkshire neighbours Motherwell.
He said: “I can remember playing them at theirs earlier this season and it wasn’t a nice game at all.
“Now I understand why Scottish football is getting the name it does which is a shame because there are a lot of good players and teams in this league.
“But for some reason the mentality up here is just to head it and kick it which I’m very surprised by.
“We’re at home this time and it’s a big pitch – much bigger than theirs. It’s grass, not that 3G stuff they play on, so we should be able to try and play.
“But sometimes you’ve got to forget everything and fight like we did in the win against Well.
“We knew how they wanted to play and that if we tried to play football they would just hunt us down. They are one of the best in the league at that.
“They never play nice football but they get results by closing you down and being very nasty.
“We just went into it thinking we would play nasty and do everything bad in terms of our football. Just kick and head things and see what happens.
“We just had to battle – we’re playing for our lives. When the third goal went in I didn’t even celebrate it.
“I just looked up and thought, ‘What is going on here, where has football gone these days?’ I’m trying to play football and yet we win games like that.
“But if that’s what it takes to win a game of football then that is what it takes.
“We got a bit of confidence from the Well game but in the next match individual errors cost us again. As soon as we sort that out I’m sure it will be fine.”