Barton Breaks Silence

Last updated : 13 January 2012 By Footy Mad - Editor

Joey Barton: "He is a really good man, quite straightforward and expects certain things of his players. If you deliver them then you tend to do well under him.

"It is still early days but football is such an incestuous game that you always know someone who has worked with a manager before and word gets around pretty quickly.

"From what I'm hearing, he and his staff are really organised, they have good intensity in training and, as a manager, I think he is really fair.

"If you are working hard and playing well then you'll stay in the team. As a player, you can't ask for any more than that.

"I am really buoyed by what I have seen in the first couple of days and I hope we can harness that, all buy into it and move this football club to where we feel it should be.

"I am really looking forward to it. It is always sad to lose a manager but that is the kind of industry we are in.

"I am sure Neil Warnock will not be long in finding new employment.

"He has got such a good record, and I am sure there will be a number of clubs looking to harness that and do what QPR did and get into the promised land.

"We have got to look forward now as a unit and concentrate on maintaining our status in the Premier League. It is not going to be easy.

"There are going to be a lot of battles ahead.

"This is going to be a testing two-month period for us now because we are playing a lot of teams in and around us in the league."