Joey Barton makes disparaging claim on Sheffield Wednesday and Derby County – ridicules Owls style
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Barton spoke prior to Tuesday evening’s 2-1 defeat to the Owls to make clear he felt his newly-promoted 15th-placed Gas side could make up what currently sits as a 20-point gap and challenge for the playoffs next season.
Casting his view on Wednesday’s playing style, Barton said: “Look, I think Sheff Wed are third tonight and after playing against them, and I say this with the greatest respect to them, but they are not easy on the eye, are they?
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Hide Ad“What did they have, 180 passes or something? [Wednesday completed 215 passes to Rovers’ 462].
“I know they’ve beaten us 2-1, but if you play that type of football, that ain’t going to keep you in the Championship.”
Barton wasn’t the first League One manager to make a play of Wednesday’s playing budget this season. Unlike most, though, he was remarkably direct in his summation of how both the Owls and Derby have gone about building their respective promotion efforts.
He said: “I keep saying this about teams but they have got big resources, big resource pools, but I said to the lads in there, ‘That’s the bar, they are the automatic promotion bar’. Derby were the play-off bar of where we need to be if we want to be successful in our challenge next season.
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Hide Ad“I don’t worry about us building a team capable of challenging if that’s the benchmark. I know they’ve 12, 14, £15million budgets, the last two opponents, but the standard at this level is certainly attainable for us if we find a bit more maturity in our performance and we get a bit more consistency, which I think will come from lads accumulating minutes and experience.
“Getting in the division was key, but consolidating and staying the division which the lads have done with games to spare, now the lads get a taste of the top end of the division and there is absolutely nothing to fear if Derby and Sheffield Wednesday are to go by.”