Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Ben doing a good job at Swindon, says Barton
which were probably frustrations for Ben when he was a manager here.
“He’s a decent bloke and he might take me to task on a few things I said, but I have no problem with that. If he wants to discuss the finer points, I’m sure I can spare 15-20 minutes for him after the game.
“But we’ve got a game to win and my focus is not on what happened last season because figuring that out and apportioning blame to whoever that was is not going to help us get promoted or be a promotionchasing team this season.”
Garner inherited a skeleton squad at Swindon after a turbulent summer but, riding the momentum of a takeover by new owner Clem Morfuni, the Robins boss has assembled a hungry side of young players which has exceeded all expectations at the start of the season.
Swindon sit ninth with 13 points from their opening nine games, three points ahead of Rovers, and Barton has been impressed by Garner’s start at the County Ground.
Barton said: “I think he’s done a good job, certainly after the offseason they had. It was disruptive to say the least and he’s gone in and you can see straight away he has a football identity and he wants to play a certain way.
“He’s clearly a good coach, I think there’s no doubt about that and he knows how to set a team up. The challenge for him is whether he can be considered a good manager?
“He’s clearly well organised and he’s got an opportunity very quickly at Swindon to prove the doubters wrong. Ben will be keen, as most of us are at the football club, to put last season behind us and I don’t think it’s fair to keep dragging it up, although this weekend will probably touch a nerve for some of our supporters because they will feel Ben had a major say in the recruitment of the team that ultimately dropped out of the division.
“But I have to take accountability there because I had 20-odd games and Paul Tisdale will also have to take accountability because he had a tenure as well that wasn’t ideal.”
While Barton accepts some blame for Rovers’ relegation last season, he believes Garner should shoulder most of the responsibility.
“I think the damage was done in the pre-season,” he said. “When I speak to people in and around the club I think they were severely undermanned with some of the cultural and behavioural patterns that started to emerge under Ben’s watch that were detrimental. He recruited the players and the players ended up getting him the sack and getting Tisdale the sack and ended up taking us out of the division.
“He probably won’t thank me for going on about it, but as you asked it’s important that it’s put to bed and we have an opportunity now with my group of players to put right the wrongs of the last couple of years.
“Ben is a good man, a good football man and a good coach and he’s got an opportunity at Swindon now to prove he’s a good manager and no doubt Ben would like to do that on Saturday with his Swindon side.”