[Crimson Dynamo]

Paul Hayward, chief sports writer for The Telegraph wrote that Barton "manages to be patronised [by the media] and held up as some kind of exemplar all at once ... he is skilled at tricking us into watching him veer between the extremes of thinker and thug. Either this is a repudiation of societal hypocrisy or, more likely, indicative of a sociopathic tendency."