In defense of Barton

[essex]

Barton is not an angel, we knew that when we bought him, but he is an extremely talented footballer who had a bad run of games recently. Against arsenal he looked like he was starting to get back into form, was in the right places, found some space, passed well and out in a captains performance.

He isn't an idiot, today he got into Johnsons face today to try and provoke a response out of him, (remember against gervinio when he was arsenal) but due to poor refereeing he found hiself with an early bath. If he had have drawn a response and Johnson was sent off and we went on to win the game, noone would be criticizing him. Let's not forget, he did score the goal that put us in the lead, he did nothing to warrant a red (that i saw and i was right behind the linesman) and actually got kicked at...

I think the keyboard warriors should watch the replays before shooting down someone who was putting in a solid-performance at the time

[BUSHRANGER1982]

I certainly didn't see Joey do anything that warranted a straight red, a yellow perhaps, but a straight red? Not in a hundred million years.

[Brooksie]

Didn't see the actual sending off incident and highlights may prove me wrong but to me just before the alleged headbutt looked like joey took a swing at One of their players and missed. Think it was only a matter of time before he got his marching orders, wether he made contact or not. More to the point why take Adel off and leave it so late to replace heider, think neils got his work cut out and needs to make some big decisions about playing personnel as I think the likes of mackie, Derry, hill, gabbidon, jay and a few others just not good enough. Sentiment won't keep us up.