?? how exactly has he conducted himself well? I presume you are joking?
Not even a little bit.
The timeline as I see it is this:
Okay, very rough start what with the prison sentence and all. After that, he applied himself on the pitch and was one of our top performers. Whether the performances made up for the rough start and outweighs it is opinion etc. I think probably just about comes up on the positive side in that respect.
He fought our tyrannical owners (that should be me being comedic, but it's not!) and questioned their policies. He communicated with fans, was honest about what was going on the club and didn't let it affect his performances. The team morale hasn't seem troubled by it either. Look at Arsenal. Look at Sunderland. He shows passion, he screams at players for s*** passes, but that's part of football. It's good for football. He always ends up joking with people - even the opposition who stamp on him ffs!
His contract negotiations were an uphill struggle from the get go because of the owners. He is getting older, so obviously we shouldn't have offered him a 75k week contract for four years (or whatever it actually is), but if the owners weren't such complete antagonistic arseholes I'm sure we could have sweetened him for a 1 or 2 year deal at around £60k (probably even less, tbh).
You have top class older pros like Hangeland who could walk into most top table teams, but a relatively small club like Fulham can hold onto him because they're not run by mongs. Similarly, how many of Everton's top class older players are leaving, or desperate to find a way out of the club (a la Carroll, Nolan, Enrique, Barton)? None is the answer. And you know they of all people could get much better salaries elsewhere.
Barton, to his credit, fought to stay here - even when transfer listed, he dug his heels in and said he was proud to wear the colours. He also continued to put in important performances and helping us to four points already. Even though he was docked wages, trained alone and treated like crap in general. Then QPR come in and offer him a great deal, give him a future and show him some respect - what obligation does he have to Ashley to stay? None. He should do what's right for him, and he has. It's to his credit he didn't go sulk somewhere, not train, play (eg Modric, Maiga) during these troubled times.
Man, my chronology is really bad... but still, hopefully you see my perspective. Joey doesn't owe anyone anything, except himself. It was up to the club to make sure he felt he could get that at Newcastle.
They failed. Well, they would have failed if it was ever their intention to keep him at all - rather than their actual intention to just cut down the Administrative Expenses line on the end of year Financial Statements. f*** the league table, right.
