Barton suspended after training ground incident

As mentioned by Brian previously today, Joey Barton has indeed been suspended by the club for the remainder of the season according to nearly all news services. The official club announcement merely refers to 'a player', but remarks from Willie McKay confirm Barton is the suspended player.

Hardly great timing is it, but in truth could there ever be for an incident such as this. Without the facts (which will no doubt emerge), it is difficult to say exactly what happened and who was at fault (I see McKay stated Barton was only 'defending himself'), but the facts as they are currently is that Barton has been suspended following a training ground incident, an incident deemed serious enough not to try and brush under the carpet as 'one of those things' and serious enough to warrant an immediate suspension without the need for a ful, drawn out investigation.

Seemingly, it would be logical to suggest that the incident stemmed from Barton's recent comments following the Watford game (Dabo is of course one of the players brought in last summer who Barton tagged as 'not being good enough'), and indeed even Barton's missed penalty on Saturday.

What Dabo's role in this is we don't know, and he may himself face further action down the line, but it does seem that Barton is clearly a frustrated individual at the moment and how spontaneous todays incident was is again something that may be revealed over the next few days.

Talk of Barton's sale/sacking as has been mentioned is extremely premature at this stage, but if Barton does feel he is the victim in all of this, we will undoubtedly have one unhappy player on our hands as we head towards another frustrating seasons end.

The press have been feasting on this story so far and a selection of the reports is as follows:

The Times: Is Barton's City career over?
The Mail: Barton's roll of shame
Sky Sports: Barton named as banned star
Reuters: City suspend Barton for rest of season
The Guardian: City suspend Barton for remainder of the season