Newcastle United’s http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Alan-c4244 Pardew claims bad boy Joey Barton is pumped-up for Tyne-Wear derby – EPL News
Newcastle United boss, Alan Pardew, has insisted that the under fire Magpies midfielder, Joey Barton, is fully determined to give his best performance in the Tyne-Wear derby against Sunderland on August 20, 2011.
The English midfield has been involved in a number of controversial incidents in the past few weeks. Just few days before the start of the 2011/12 Barclays Premier League season, Newcastle United board decided to offload the 28-year-old midfielder for free
after Barton publically blasted the club’s policies.
Despite the uncertainty over his future, Barton started for Newcastle United in their opening day fixture against http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Arsenal-c38429 at St. James Park. Once again, the outspoken midfielder made the headlines after he was involved in two controversial events during
the match against the Gunners, which resulted in a three-match ban for http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Alex-Song-c4804.
However, Alan Pardew has insisted that Barton’s attitude is not affected by the criticism in media and has asserted the English midfielder is fully committed to give his best for the Magpies against their local rivals Sunderland.
The Toon manager was impressed by Barton’s performance against Arsenal last week and is confident that the English midfielder will continue his impressive form against Sunderland.
Pardew believes that Barton is one of the best players in his squad and reckons that the opposition will be planning hard to keep control of the former Manchester City midfielder during the Tyne-Wear derby.
The Magpies manager told the reporters, “Joey has been in the press a fair bit this week - more than Joey would have liked and more than I would have liked - but the other thing they will be focusing on is he is a very good player, of course, and they need
to stop him.”
Pardew hailed Barton’s impressive display against Arsenal last week and has revealed that the former Manchester City midfielder has assured him to give his best against Sunderland.
"The assurances I wanted from Joey were that he would be a team player here and do his normal http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Job-c18684 for the team, and that's what he did, and he was excellent on Saturday in terms of his performance,” Alan Pardew concluded.
The first Tyne-Wear derby of the ongoing 2011/12 Barclays Premier League season will be played at Stadium of Light.
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