Vote: Is Joey Barton becoming a problem?

Joey Barton certainly seems a confident character, and is no doubt a very talented and passionate footballer, but are his recent public comments and actions drawing too much attention to not only himself, but Newcastle United as a club?

Newcastle are already a club that the UK press look to fuel any upheaval, and unfortunately in years gone by we have given them so much to work with in terms af trauma and drama. One of the best things, perhaps the best, of the Chris Hughton era, is that he seemed to keep the media clueless as to what is happening internally at NUFC.

Personally, I believe Joey is starting to take his outspoken nature a step too far, because it is beginning to place too much attention on a club that doesn’t need the added pressure.

Joey has never been shy of "speaking the truth" and being someone who isn't afraid to call a spade a spade myself, I can relate and actually admire that quality.

However, when speaking your mind begins to effect other aspects negatively, then perhaps it is time to reign in, because in the end, it accomplishes nothing. You cannot sway opinions that refuse to be changed, no matter how loud the or valid your argument.

It is clear from some of his recent comments, that Joey (perhaps rightly) feels he is being unfairly judged because of past incidents. But he needs to understand that this will always be the way. If my girlfriend cheated on me for instance, I could perhaps forgive her, but the trust would be gone forever. And if we ever had an argument in the future, the issue would undoubtedly be brought up, time and time again.

My point is, your mistakes in the past will always impact your future. Joey has been forgiven and is adored by much of the Newcastle faithful, but others do not trust him, and will try to provoke him. He cannot let this frustrate him to the point where is becomes his main focus to prove a point.

As hard as it is, he needs to not only keep his fists, but his mouth under control.

I can sympathize because he has done much in the past two seasons to curtail that bad reputation, but now he needs to be keeping himself OUT of the spotlight rather than placing himself firmly in it. Just one blip like roughing up Gervinho on Saturday and he will be lambasted. You can say it's not fair, but life isn’t always fair.

He clearly enjoys the public attention, but he should get that attention, as he did last season, with terrific performances on the pitch and not terrific performances with his mouth on twitter.

These rants at the media (no matter how justified) mean that his mind cannot be 100% on football and Newcastle, and the frustration of trying to prove a point to a journalist – who is only trying to rile him up into further comments for a story - is clearly getting to him.

He must decide what comes first, his ego or NUFC.

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Thanks to JJ (not Jay Jay) for writing and submitting this article.