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Tue 21 March 2017 9:34, UK

By Will Butcher

Scott Arfield has claimed that the Rangers squad are to blame for the departure of Joey Barton earlier in the season.

Burnley playmaker Arfield, who teamed up with Barton for a second time as the one-time England international rejoined the Clarets, claimed the Gers players could not hack Barton.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, the 28-year-old attacker claimed Rangers did not use Barton properly and were unwilling to listen to the outspoken midfielder’s honest approach.

“Joey has come back to us and it has been seamless,” Arfield said. “I honestly think it was Rangers who created the problem. They didn’t use him properly and that was the downfall.

“The Rangers players couldn’t hack him or didn’t want to hear some home truths. Getting hammered 5-1 by your biggest rivals, it was never going to be rosy when they went into training.”

Barton, 34, left Ibrox in November after a string of incidents that lead to him failing to make a single first-team appearance for two months with the Scottish giants.

Following the 5-1 loss to Celtic, Barton was involved in a training ground spat with fellow midfielder Andy Halliday that saw him receive a suspension.

On top of that, Barton was then placed under investigation by the Scottish Football Association for 1,260 incidents of gambling, which he later accepted in February 2017.

It saw the former Man City, Newcastle and QPR midfielder leave Ibrox, with his contract being terminated, and the Liverpudlian midfielder has now rejoined Burnley.

Since rejoining the Lancashire side, the tenacious midfielder has been one of the first names on Sean Dyche’s team sheets and even re-opened his Burnley account with the winner in a 1-0 win over Southampton.

In other Rangers news, this former manager has dealt another blow to the Gers’ pursuit of a director of football.

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