Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Boss Barton blasts work of previous Gas bosses
JOEY Barton has labelled the work of his predecessors at Bristol Rovers ‘negligent’ in another lively press conference.
Just days after taking aim at the choice of Max Ehmer as club captain prior to his arrival, Barton this time took previous bosses Paul Tisdale and Ben Garner to task.
Rovers are odds-on to be relegated from League One after a nightmare week of three straight defeats plunged them into the mire.
Barton was brought in following Tisdale’s sacking in February, just three months after Garner too was dismissed, with Rovers enduring a miserable season.
The former Fleetwood chief ’s appointment saw an improvement in performances to begin with but, according to the League One table at least, he has been unable to change Rovers’ fortunes.
Ahead of today’s daunting clash with promotion-chasing Sunderland, managed by former Bristol City head coach Lee Johnson, Barton – in trademark blunt fashion – gave his verdict on the task he accepted.
“These lads haven’t had a chance,” Barton claimed. “Whatever has gone before me has been negligent.
“If they were doctors, they should certainly be struck off for what’s gone on here before, but we can’t do anything about that.
“At some point those coaches will probably want to take me to task on that and I’ll have no issue in showing them exactly what they got wrong and where they got it wrong, and they’ll be better coaches for it.
“So if they want to get on the phone and have a conversation with me, no problem at all, but the job that’s been done before we got here is negligent and they’ve set these boys up for failure and we’ve got to try to reverse that trend.”
Both Garner and Tisdale managed just three League wins in their stints this term, and neither could have firm complaints when they were relieved of their duties. They have both had a hand in a miserable campaign that has Rovers speeding towards League Two.
Barton was questioned during his Zoom call about his cutting analysis and the use of ‘negligent’ to describe his predecessors’ work.
“It’s not a strong word, they both got sacked,” he replied. “Both have been sacked for a reason, same as me at Fleetwood. Usually in our trade you get potted if you haven’t been doing a good enough job and the club hasn’t been getting results and the same thing, I imagine, will happen to me if I don’t get results.”
Barton says he has forensically analysed the recordings of previous training sessions at The Quarters and believes that they were not up to standard. He was particularly critical of the heavy sessions the day before a matchday, understood to be a tenet of Tisdale’s time at the club.
He continued: “I could show you the footage of the training sessions. They’re a farce. We’re racehorse trainers, I’ve got to train the lads for a race and they’re running out of gas and steam before they’re getting anywhere near the final furlongs.
“You can only judge that the way you see it. I can’t protect previous managers and the fact they’re not at the club says what’s gone before.
“We’re way behind the eight ball here and I can only call it as I call it. As I say, I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty of whose fault it is, because I wasn’t here and I didn’t see it. All I’ve got to go off is all the recorded training sessions, because everyone videos training. Two-anda-half-hour sessions on a Friday, what chance of the lads got?
“It’s like having a 15-round spar the night before you have a 12-round scrap. What chance of you got? You’re going to get your head punched in.
“It’s because they don’t know what it’s like to go in the ring, they don’t know. They’ve read it in a book and they’ve done it on a course and they don’t know. It’s criminal, but it is what it is and we’re here to solve it. That’s what we’re here to fix, that’s my promise to the Bristol Rovers fans, we’ll get them out of this mess that they’re in.”