Joey Barton claims the playing surface at the Mem is becoming such an issue he’s told Bristol Rovers owner Wael Al-Qadi and CEO Tom Gorringe he may have to adapt his summer transfer plans and coaching style due to its perceived inconsistency.
For the second home game in a row Barton was critical of the pitch in BS7 claiming Lamare Bogarde’s error, as he mis-controlled a pass in midfield to allow Brandon Hanlan to score the opener in a 2-0 win for Wycombe Wanderers, was the result of a bobble rather than a momentary technical mistake by the Dutch teenager.
Having declared after the 0-0 draw against Barnsley last week that it wasn’t up to standard and suited the Tykes' more direct approach, it continues to irritate Barton as he brought it up twice in his post-match press conference when discussing Rovers’ poor home form in 2023.
The Gas haven’t won at the Mem since Cheltenham Town on New Year’s Day, losing four games and drawing two in all competitions, and while the manager admits there are other factors behind that run, it could have much greater consequences for his squad moving forward.
“I’ve spoken to Tom and the owner about the pitch saying, ‘look if that pitch doesn’t get fixed, I’m going to have to recruit completely differently to what I want to do’,” Barton said. “To the point where I’m like, it almost might be better bringing in another coach in; somebody who doesn’t need grass who just wants to go back to front relatively quickly.
“Because if the pitch doesn’t get resolved, as you’ve seen tonight, we’ve played a squad pass in there, it’s hit a bobble and it’s put the opposition through one-on-one. I know that does happen from time to time but I want to build a team that controls the ball.
“Last year, in League Two, we had a better pitch than we have in League One. They tell me there’s problems with the drainage, stuff’s collapsed… I don’t know but we’ve got an owner who spends a lot of money on the facilities, we’ve got lots of grounds people but yet our training pitches are better than our matchday pitch and that is not acceptable.
“To the point where I might have to change how I recruit in the summer and the style of football we play because of the surface that we’re going to play on, there’s no point us playing 23 games. I’m building a team to control the ball. We play 23 on a surface we control that is not conducive to the way we want to play.”
Barton emphasised that his views around the pitch were not the primary reason Rovers were beaten by a Wycombe side he didn’t appear overly impressed by, citing his side’s profligacy in front of goal and their “soft” underbelly in the face of the Chairboys’ physicality.
But the fact it continues to be a bone of contention for the manager indicates a growing issue in which there may not be a quick fix, with just five home games remaining in the 2022/23 campaign before the annual maintenance work after the conclusion of the season.
Rovers’ ground staff were declared the best in League One by the EFL for the 2018/19 campaign after successfully addressing a long period where the Mem surface was lambasted for its unevenness and propensity to cut up, particularly by former manager Darrell Clarke.
That debate unfortunately looks to be returning as Barton’s frustrations have been amplified by the fact direct sides such as Barnsley and now Wycombe have benefitted from playing at the Mem, where the opposite should be true.
“You’ll get all the people saying, ‘oh, what’s his excuse this time? It’s not the ref, it’s the pitch’ but you’re asking me a question and I’m giving you an answer: is the pitch the reason we got beat tonight? No, absolutely not. Is it a mitigating circumstance to the first goal and goals change games, yeah, you have to look at that bobble and think it is,” Barton added.
“You’ve watched Lamare play in recent weeks, he very rarely gives it away. If you watch the ball, it hits a bobble, hits his other foot and then puts Hanlan in for the first goal.
“We need to get to the bottom of it because if we want to get promoted out of this division, my teams usually have the ball, build through. I can coach a different way, I played a different way so it’s no problem for me. But I don’t want to do it because I believe I can do it a different way.
"It’s a lot easier to strip this back and go route one but it means I’ll have to recruit completely differently in terms of personnel and we’ll be in the market for Wycombe-type players who can handle the physicality.”
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