The 34-year-old only joined Mark Warburton’s Glasgow Rangers in the summer.
Joey Barton
Former Rangers midfielder Neale Cooper has told the Evening Times that Joey Barton needs to show his leadership qualities to help the side recover from the setback of their Old Firm humiliation.
Mark Warburton’s men will be looking to bounce back at the weekend after suffering a 5-1 defeat at the hands of Celtic in their most recent game.
And with the side’s season perhaps not living up to expectations, they perhaps need someone to grab the team by the scruff of the neck and get them to put their disappointment behind them.
And Cooper – who made just 17 league appearances for the club during a two-year spell at Ibrox – has outlined the importance of having those leaders within the squad, and suggested that Barton is the ideal man to perform that role this time around.
“He is a good professional. With his age and experience, he is the kind of player you are looking to pick things up in training. He must take responsibility for more than performing on match days,” he told the Evening Times.
“When I was at Rangers we had leaders throughout the team. You couldn’t have asked for any better. Richard Gough, Terry Butcher, Ray Wilkins, Mark Hateley, Chris Woods and John Brown were all there.
“They would pick up on things we did wrong in a game at the very next training session and take an active role in turning things around. That is what Joey must do.”
During the summer, Barton would surely have been earmarked as the signing that was most likely to prove a success in the Scottish Premiership.
He was pivotal in inspiring Burnley to promotion to the Premier League last season, so looked as if he may bring plenty of consistency in the middle of the park.
And while it has not quite happened for Barton yet, many supporters would suggest that he is the man most likely to drag them through their mixed patch of form, and Cooper feels that now is the time for the 34-year-old to prove why Warburton was so desperate to sign him.
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