In a recent interview with GQ magazine, Joey Barton was asked if any players he has remind him of himself. “I do, yeah”, was the response of the Bristol Rovers manager, without obviously divulging the names of the individuals.
It’s difficult to know whether the question was formed around character or playing profile but, among this Gas squad, the most obvious mirror to what Barton was on the field during his Premier League career with Manchester City, Newcastle United and QPR is Sam Finley.
Tenacious, aggressive, wily but with technical smarts that often go unnoticed, a lot of the work Finley gets through over 90 minutes, echoes the approach Barton brought to the game a decade or so ago.
By his own admission, Finley kicks every ball for everyone else - if a teammate makes a mistake on the pitch, he feels it’s his responsibility to correct it. A decision-making process that can sometimes be to his detriment as he hares around.
Barton has spelled that out to his fellow Scouser during one-to-one meetings in his office at The Quarters, while also being conscious he doesn’t want to take away Finley’s best attributes and that all-encompassing midfield player he is for Rovers.
As Barton admits, when Finley plays well, so do the Gas, such is the drive and craft he brings to the midfield and he’s an individual whose own individual performances make his teammates better.
“He’s said it to me numerous times, ‘you remind me so much of myself,” Finley said, agreeing with the analysis having watched his manager take part in training games this week. “(He said to me) You sometimes let other people’s decisions affect the way you play, if they make the wrong decision, it affects you.
“Which is just showing to me, that as a person, I like to see everyone do well. I’m not screaming and shouting at everyone but if they make the wrong decision then I have to try and rectify that wrong decision and try and win the ball back, make a tackle.
“I’ve had loads of conversations with the gaffer about that. I’m maybe not as good (as he was) but he sees a bit of himself in me. And, off the pitch, two Liverpool lads, I think we get on.”
A recent subject matter of those conversations has been Finley’s role in the team this season. Last term, he was a classic box-to-box No8, with the protection of Paul Coutts, Josh Grant or Glenn Whelan behind him but whose energy and competitive appetite allowed him to get forward but also manoeuvre himself back into a deeper role to carry out his defensive duties.
The Rovers midfield remains much the same in terms of some of the key personnel but with new arrivals Jordan Rossier and Luke McCormick adding to the mix, Finley’s responsibilities could start to be more on the defensive end.
As Barton said last week, his ideal is for the Gas to end up in a 3-4-3 and that would seemingly include Finley as a dynamic holding midfield, alongside Rossiter or McCormick, giving them the platform to move forward.
“I had a conversation with the gaffer last week, he said, it might be more of a role for me because he thinks I can do both sides - I can defend and track back,” Finley added. “I can battle and win the ball but also pass forward and break lines with passes to get Antony Evans and Aaron Collins on the ball further forward. That’s the gaffer’s decision, and obviously I’ll go out there and give it my all.”
That project has plenty of time to be put into practice following the news that Finley has signed a new two-year contract at Rovers, continuing a theme of the Gas retaining the key elements of their promotion squad far beyond this season.
Staying in north Bristol was a no-brainer for the 30-year-old who admits he had never been to the city, outside of playing at the Mem, before last summer but feels very much part of the furniture of the club and wants to be part of the constant drive for improvement.
“We can eventually get to the Championship with the backing of the owner,” Finley declares. “He’s been brilliant since he’s come to the club, long before I was here. We can progress and go as far as he wants to go with the football club and with the manager, and staff and the infrastructure that’s getting built here, I don’t see why we can’t get to the Championship.
"This season, we’re not going to be competing with the top-end teams, budget-wise but I think we eventually can compete on the pitch with them.”
That may be more of a medium to long-term vision but here and now Rovers need to address a nagging run of six games without a win that has seen them slide into the bottom four of League One. Amid injury and suspension issues, new players needing time to gel and having to adapt to new surroundings in a different league, what’s happened this term very much chimes with events 12 months ago when, after nine matches in League Two, Rovers had 10 points and were 18th in the table.
Those experiences, as Barton and his team came under criticism and self-doubt crept in before that brilliant second-half to the campaign, have helped shape this squad and enabled them to deal with these fresh teething problems, rather than be consumed by it.
However, Finley accepts that results need to turn soon because, unlike in League Two, the margin for error is so much smaller, which makes digging results out and going on a run that much harder.
“It’s just gelling as a side. It’s very similar to last season, we picked up loads of niggles and couldn’t get a run of form until Christmas and hopefully it happens sooner than that because it’s a bit more punishing, this league, from League Two - you can’t afford to take that run going. Once the gaffer has his strongest XI out, in terms of everybody being fit, then I think you’ll see how good we can be.
“We went through the same sort of spell last season," he said. "(There's) maybe not as much pressure this season, because we were favourites to go up last season, so the pressure was on. We did turn the corner and proved everyone wrong who was saying, ‘they don’t look like a side… they’re never going to do it’ and this and that. But we can’t keep talking about last season, that’s gone and it’s a whole new league now with massive clubs and massive budgets.
“It does give us a little bit of confidence because we did it last season but, then again, it’s a different ball game because you get punished more in this league - mistakes and wrong decisions - there’s just too much quality especially at the high end of the pitch for opposition teams. So the errors and the mistakes need to be cut out, be a bit more solid at the back.
“I don’t think going forward is our problem because Aaron Collins is in unbelievable form and Lofty’s hit form at a good time, we’ve got John Marquis to come into that, Antony Evans is going to come good and hit form - I fully believe he’ll pop up with 10/15 goals this season.”
The next chance to address all the above comes in the form of Accrington Stanley, a club Finley knows especially well having made 82 appearances between 2018-2020, working for John Coleman, a manager he still holds in incredible high esteem.
As Finley knows, Stanley play aggressive, front-foot football and, “you always know you’re in a battle with them”. For a team that conceded six last weekend, with their defensive vulnerabilities, that would seem a potential recipe for disaster but the midfielder insists that there were numerous positives from that defeat to Lincoln City that show signs of progress.
And going beyond the goals conceded - which was, granted, the determining factor in the game - Rovers played well as an attacking side, providing enough evidence to suggest that this team is starting to come together.
“I thought, as weird as it sounds, that was probably the best performance from us,” Finley said. “I know you look at the scoreline and people may question why, but the ones who were there and people who have seen the game agree with me - I think it was the best we’ve played.
"Obviously putting chances in the back of the net wasn’t going our way but I think we’ve created the most chances we have all season. I think someone is going to be on the other end of that scoreline, hopefully with less goals conceded but once the penny drops we’ll give someone a hiding.”
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