By Chris Wright

(Images: Mirror)

What with his still being banned from playing for them in the league until November 17th, Joey Barton has had to make do with a few peripheral appearances for Marseille so far which included a run-out in a friendly against Ligue 2 side FC Istres yesterday.

Barton provided a peachy assist for Loic Remy to open the scoring in the 1-1 draw, but also managed to get himself involved in an admittedly fairly minor altercation with Guy-Roland Niangbo when the pair squared up to each other after Barton dragged the Istres player to the floor with a flailing lunge in the final few minutes of the game.

Sadly, no footage appears to exist (yet, at least) but the takedown has been described by various sources as ‘over the top’, ‘wild’, ‘reminiscent of a wrestling throw’ and as ‘unacceptable’ by the Istres coach Jose Pasqualetti.

Call us cynical, but we’d suspect that it was nowhere near as bad as the English press would like to have you believe. It certainly looks like something you wouldn’t so much as bat an eyelid at in a Sunday League game.

Anyway, L’OM have uploaded a clip of Barton’s assist to their official Youtube account, so feel free to have a butcher’s at that if you so desire…

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