Former Marseille striker Tony Cascarino has today condemned his old club’s loan of the controversial midfielder with a harshly worded article in the Daily Star.

The footballer-turned-pundit certainly made his views on Joey Barton’s move clear:

Joey Barton was a good player five years ago, when he was at Manchester City.

There were lots of problems with him. He’s a hard lad to understand – in fact he’s crazy.

He needs to prove he is still a footballer who can play at his former level and that he is better than people say he is.

The trouble is you can sum up his ­career over the past three years as a ­series of off-field problems.

I was amazed that Marseille were interested in him. I thought he would end his career at QPR, with no-one wanting to risk signing him.

He says a lot of things and does ­completely the opposite. He might sound cultured from reading his interviews and tweets but I don’t think he is.

He seizes on expressions he thinks are brilliant and repeats them. But that doesn’t wash with me. He then goes and does incredibly ­stupid things – there’s no sense to him.

He ought to have gone to prison for attacking Ousmane Dabo. He was inside once but it wasn’t for long enough.

He is guilty of doing some really evil and dangerous things.

I know personally, Alan Shearer had serious problems with him when he was Newcastle ­manager. They were played down and Joey was lucky.

I don’t see any redemption for him. Things will be quiet with him, then all of a sudden there’s a huge problem.

If he tries to profit from being at ­Marseille, and the atmosphere at the club, he could forge a bond with their fans and change his life around.

But I put a big question mark over it as things have so often gone badly with him in the past.

Marseille is a fantastic club and they’ve previously welcomed some players who are a bit mad.

The Marseille fans love eccentric ­characters. But they won’t love Joey just for that – he will need to play well, above anything else.

Cascarino’s career has not been without controversy however, he got in a bit of hot water for a seemingly off-the-cuff comment on Sky Sports News. Take a look at the video below:

Joey Barton’s former Manchester City teammate and perhaps the most prominent victim of the player’s aggressive streak, Ousmane Dabo might tend to agree with Cascarino’s comments though. He recently told French newspaper L’Equipe:

Barton is lying about what happened on the training pitch at Manchester City. It is unbelievable. I am shocked.

There was a trial, he pleaded guilty, and got a four-months suspended prison sentence. When he is talking, he denies it, he stated I have started it all. It is fake. All my team-mates that were present during the attack gave evidence for me during the trial.

He tackled me, I replied by tackling him too. We found ourselves face-to-face. I had no intention to fight. I jostled him, but I didn’t hit him. So I turned back and then he struck me to the side of the head.

I lost consciousness and, being on the ground, he jumped at me and went on hitting me in the face about 10 times.

He says he is a man, a bad boy, but he is just a coward. I don’t want to give my truth, but the truth. Once again there was a trial.

He is nasty, a traitor. Sometimes I feel people roll out the red carpet for him. So I talk to remind people Joey Barton is a very violent player, far away from the image he tries to give since he joined Marseille.

It wears me out to talk again about that story five years later.

Barton didn’t seem too impressed with Dabo’s account though and reacted on Twitter:

I see Dabo is yet to move on, I feel for him. What happened was unfortunate. Next time he should think twice about throwing his weight about

— Joseph Barton (@Joey7Barton) September 3, 2012

Thats all I have to say about this chap. I have moved on. Je suis fatigué de cette discussion.

— Joseph Barton (@Joey7Barton) September 3, 2012

If Ousmane wants to come to a Marseille game, have dinner and discuss it like adults, he’s more than welcome anytime. For me now, its over!

— Joseph Barton (@Joey7Barton) September 3, 2012

SOURCE: Daily Star