I think Joey Barton has to be careful with some of the statements that he’s been making recently.

All journalists are looking at players to see if anyone is coming out with anything controversial, and before you know it you’re all over the front or back pages.

The club should be having words with players to make sure that they aren’t coming out with personal slurs on other professionals, because all he has done is stir it up.

That’s what social media is all about, I know that, but I don’t think that helps the club. Use it for certain things, sure, but Joey isn’t even here yet and he’s upsetting an awful lot of people.

It might be great for him getting more followers on Twitter, but from a footballing perspective I can’t imagine Mark Warburton being too happy about it.

You can’t be saying things about players you are coming up against. I’m afraid that when you’re in Glasgow and you’re having a go at the captain of your biggest rivals, then you’re putting yourself under pressure right away.

He says that Scott Brown isn’t in the same league as him. Well, we’ll find that out in the first game, but all he has done with those comments is put pressure on himself and probably served to fire up the Celtic captain.

These words will be brought up in the week of the Old Firm match, and if that doesn’t get Scott Brown and the rest of them going then nothing will.

You give the opposition nothing. For the last 50 years people have been saying things in the papers, and it can really serve to get your back up.

I think back to the cup final in 1970. One of the papers had all the captains of other teams in the league predicting who would win, and something like 20 out of the 22 went for Celtic, and the two that didn’t were Rangers fans.

Jock Wallace came in and pinned that up to say ‘look, nobody fancies us here.’ Of course, we went out and won the game.

That can work as a motivational tool, I’ve had first-hand experience of it, so all he has done is give a wee bit of a motivation to the opposition.

I think because of that, Joey has to watch what he is saying about other people, and be more respectful.