Day of reckoning for Barton at FA adds to St James' problems

Even without Kevin Keegan's departure, today was always going to be a significant day for Newcastle as Joey Barton has his Football Association hearing over the violent conduct charge relating to the assault on Ousmane Dabo in training when Barton was a Manchester City player in May of last year. Barton has already accepted the charge, so what this lunchtime's events will centre on is a plea of mitigation in an attempt to minimise any punishment.

Having pleaded guilty of assaulting Dabo at Manchester crown court in June, Barton had little option but to also plead guilty to the FA charge. At the time of the court hearing Barton was in the middle of serving 74 days at Strangeways prison in Manchester for an assault on a teenager in Liverpool city centre last December. That occurred when Barton was a Newcastle player, though before Keegan became manager.

Keegan said last Friday that Barton has already served his time in prison and "missed games", but had he been fit it is likely Barton would have appeared in more of Newcastle's four matches this season than his brief substitute appearance at Arsenal on Saturday.

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The worry for Barton, who was 26 on Tuesday, should be that he did not look like a reformed character in those two minutes on the pitch at Arsenal. The FA could also take a stern view of the prison sentence and see it as bringing the game into disrepute rather than as punishment served.

When the FA announced their charge at the end of July, it was not discounted that Barton could receive a ban comparable to that given to Manchester United's Eric Cantona for his lunge into the crowd at Selhurst Park in 1995. Cantona was banned worldwide for nine months and fined £100,000.

Offering support to Barton yesterday was the manager who signed him from City for £5.8m, Sam Allardyce.

"I'll tell you one thing, it's going to do Joey Barton, Newcastle United or football any good if they suspend him," Allardyce said. "He has already served his time. He has already paid his penalty and if you want to keep Joey Barton on the straight and narrow, so to speak, it should be getting him playing football because that is where he is at the happiest in his life.

"To slap a severe punishment on him again would almost be as if they are doing it because it is politically correct and not because it is the right thing to do.

"That's my opinion," he added, "but I can't really see anything other than a suspension for him."