Joey Barton: I told Mark Warburton not to sign this defender when I was at Rangers
Joey Barton has revealed how he urged Mark Warburton to not sign Joleon Lescott during his time as a player at Rangers.
Barton’s short-lived spell at Ibrox has gone down in Scottish football infamy with the former midfielder barely having any impact on the pitch before off-field disagreements with Warburton led to his exit.
And it seems that one of those disagreements with Warburton was over former Manchester City and Aston Villa defender Lescott, who Barton advised his manager to not sign him due to his knee issues.
“They were asking me about a number of players. They were trying to sign Lescott just before I left,” Barton told the Football CFB podcast. “I said, ‘don’t sign him. His knees are like dust’. I knew people who worked with him and as it turned out it was a nightmare.”
The Fleetwood manager added: “He was the signing that I think me and Warbs mainly had our final disagreement with and realised we wouldn’t see eye to eye.”
Barton joined Rangers in the summer of 2016, which was just after Lescott was released by Aston Villa.
During Lescott’s time at Villa, he was part of the squad that suffered relegation from the Premier League for the first time ever.
He angered the fans by tweeting a picture of his car after a 6-0 loss to Liverpool and once relegation was confirmed, he said it was like a weight off his shoulders.
Instead of joining Rangers, Lescott headed to Greece to join AEK Athens.
He lasted just three months in Athens after suffering a knee injury that ruled him out for six months.
Barton did a lot wrong in his time at Ibrox but telling Warburton to not sign Lescott was probably the best thing he did.
In other Rangers news, the Gers are close to completing a deal to sign this international attacker.