Joey Barton WILL leave Rangers - reports

Joey Barton has given two interviews in today’s newspapers which could see his time at Rangers plunged into further chaos and controversy.

The back page of the Sun, however, claims that Barton will leave the club for good at the end of his three-week suspension.

Although the interviews were given before yesterday’s crunch talks with Mark Warburton, where he was instructed not to comment on his disciplinary matter and suspended for three weeks, today’s Guardian and Daily Mail both contain interviews with some pretty tasty stuff.

One which may fly under the radar is the claim that Celtic attempted to move for him when they became aware of Rangers’ interest, although the real problems could arise from further comments about his team and Scottish football.

Barton dived in with the usual pish that players who fail badly in Scotland are wont to do, claiming: "It’s a much lower level and I’m trying to help people get to a higher level. They think me helping is me trying to say ‘you’re not good enough.’ It’s difficult."

[Pause for laughter]

Well, yes, Barton has been helping our players work harder. He’s done this in a few ways, making them work harder (by ambling around at 3mph in midfield ensuring they compensate), run faster (by overhitting hollywood balls to them) and fight more (by selling them hospital passes constantly.) Truly, we are in his debt.

It’s hard to know exactly what’ll happen here, and there’s plenty more laughable stuff in the interviews - you can read them here and here - but we don’t know whether the club will be aware of this. They took place before yesterday’s meeting, so either Mark Warburton and the club know about them and have factored it into their actions, or they don’t, in which case Barton must surely be a goner.