Unlucky Joey, enjoy your ban

Joey Barton HAS been charged by the FA after his disgraceful punch aimed at MGP in last night's Newcastle vs Rovers match.

Morten was hit in the stomach by everyone's favourite ex-con and will now be hit with some length of ban depending on his ban.

I would love to see Barton use last night's defence of 'oh, I only patted him ref... come on Morten it was only a push'.

But either way, Barton is going to be punished and rightly so.

An FA statement was released to day and said on their own website - 'Newcastle United FC midfielder Joey Barton has today [Thursday] been charged with violent conduct by the FA following an incident in his side's fixture with Blackburn Rovers FC on Wednesday, 10 November.

'Barton has until 6pm on Friday 12 November to reply to the charge and under the FA's fast-track regulations, may admit the charge and accept a standard three-match suspension.''

Jason Roberts, one of last night's goal hero has also waded in to defend the other.

The Grenade (as I am now calling him) thinks that Barton punched Morten unprovoked and even backed his team mate as one of footballs nice men.

Roberts told Talk Sport - 'Morten`s turned round to apologise if you watch the footage to say sorry about that foul, we`ve all seen the footage, we all saw what happened, so it will be interesting to see what happens from now going on.'

'It's all right doing it to people who are not that way inclined'

'Morten is a lovely lad and he`s never going to say anything to be controversial or make any wild statements but you could see he was disappointed by what happened.

'From his point of view what he was saying was anyone who was watching the video will see what happens. He didn`t want to comment too much because he wouldn`t say boo to a goose and that's what makes yesterday even more disappointing. It's all right doing it to people who are not that way inclined.'

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.