Joey Barton says the "bad blood" between the coaching staff of Bristol Rovers and their opposite numbers at league-leading Plymouth Argyle remains strong ahead of tonight's clash at Home Park as the Gas try to have their say in the League One promotion race.
Argyle are closing in on a place in the Championship under Steven Schumacher and they will go five points clear of third-place Sheffield Wednesday with a win over the Gas in Devon in a game with multiple subplots.
The crux of the issues between the clubs centres on an incident during the pulsating 2-2 draw between the teams at the Mem in October when Gas first-team coach Andy Mangan was accused of using homophobic language towards a Plymouth staff member, something Barton's right-hand man categorically denies after being charged by the Football Association.
A counterclaim is understood to have been made by Rovers that a member of Plymouth's staff was caught recording near the home dressing room and the matter is yet to be settled by the FA.
That added to an already spicy relationship between the clubs and their respective employees, with Barton going public on his dislike for Argyle director of football Neil Dewsnip after he released him at Everton when he was a teenager, and both playing and coaching groups have a distinctly Liverpudlian flavour. That includes Plymouth coach Mark Hughes, who was on Rovers' playing staff but was snapped up midway through the campaign to join his old Bury teammate Schumacher.
Irrespective of all that, Barton says he and his players need no extra motivation to turn in a good performance after a disappointing showing in defeat at Port Vale on Saturday.
"Going to the league leaders, it is going to be a tough task and a tough challenge, but there is a bit of bad blood between the coaching groups and, as I say to you, I don’t want my kids to beat me a Connect Four and I’m very unlikely to want to help Plymouth out in any way," he said.
"If we can win a game – we want to get back to winning ways – there is no better place to start than at top of the table.
"There is a bad taste between the two dugouts, but they don’t bother me. They’re doing their thing and they’ve had a great season and they are looking to finish it off and we’re doing our thing.
"For 90 minutes, if I was playing against my kids on Tuesday I would want to beat them and beat them comfortably, so it doesn’t make any difference that it’s Schumacher and Mark Hughes.
"I always want my teams to go out and give everything they have got and even in the two defeats, we’ve had a right go, albeit we didn’t create much at Port Vale but we kept going and trying to make something happen. Hopefully, we can give a good account of ourselves and certainly be better than we were on Saturday."
This will be the fourth meeting between the sides this season, having met in the EFL Trophy group stages in Devon in August, with the hosts winning the bonus-point shootout, before they faced again in the quarter-finals of the same competition in January. Argyle won 2-0 but were beaten by Bolton Wanderers in the final last month.
A big crowd is expected at Home Park with Plymouth just a couple of wins away from securing promotion and, possibly, the League One title.
Barton says the Gas must be prepared for a fiery atmosphere after a flat performance at Vale Park, where their hosts showed more intensity and vigour, and they owe it not only to themselves but the integrity of the competition to give their all this evening.
"They have got that chance of winning the league and everything to play for," he added. "At these levels, the teams are closely matched and motivation and determination can settle encounters, as we saw on Saturday.
"If we turn up and we’re not ready for what’s coming, it will be a tough evening down on the south coast, but I’m hoping the lads respond correctly because we’ve been in that promotion-chasing group and what you want is the teams who don’t have everything to play for to compete and play as well as they can.
"Certainly, Ipswich and Sheffield Wednesday and Barnsley will be wanting us to give a better account of ourselves than we did at Vale Park on Saturday."
Rovers were without Ryan Loft for the Port Vale defeat, but Barton hopes to have the striker available on tonight, hinting that he will be a big part of his gameplan.
"He just had a little glute tightening on Friday, but we’re hoping he’s alright," Barton revealed. "He had a scan on Saturday morning and you’re always worried it’s a hamstring but it doesn’t look like it’s going to impact him.
"I think he’s going to be available for Tuesday, fingers crossed, because it was my plan to utilise him against Plymouth. We will find out, but it’s good signs after the scan."
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