Joey Barton

Joey Barton v His Teammates
(Manchester City 6 – 0 Queens Park Rangers)

If your team has to get relegated, the best you can hope for is that they go down fighting for survival and aiming to save face in the league.

That didn’t happen for QPR this weekend, as they were relegated by being savagely thumped 6-0 by a rampant Manchester City. Prior to the match, the threat of relegation was all a bit too much for the normally quiet and mild-mannered QPR midfielder Joey Barton, who gave an interview in which he did not take responsibility for QPR’s poor showing but instead called out his teammates for causing QPR to lose so many games.

Barton referred to “one or two bad eggs” being responsible for the poor season. According to The Mirror, the players he was referring to are Adel Taarabt, Armand Traore, Mauro Zarate, Mauricio Isla and Eduardo Vargas (all of whom were generally crap this season, so not a bad guess)– although Barton has since taken to Twitter to deny those are the players he was referring to.

It’s a shame for QPR that their season has descended to this. Burnley went out with dignity – and even won the game in which they were relegated, but it’s not appropriate to point fingers whilst two games are still left in the calendar – especially in a team where, at the end of the day, only one player can walk away from the team knowing he left everything on the field this season – and it’s not Joey Barton.

It’s exceptional striker Charlie Austin, who rather responsibly, kept his mouth shut, and let his feet do the talking.