So Joey Barton is going to be a 'top manager,' in the same way that I am going to be a leading cardiologist.

Both seem about as likely as Sir Alex Ferguson coming back into football as Steven Gerrard's personal assistant.

Barton made this typically brash and self confident assertion in an interview with Sky Sports when quizzed on his emotional connection with the sport he has played for more than two decades.

But if any owner in world football saw fit to part with their (occasionally) hard-earned millions by employing Barton at the helm of their football club, there would be a veritable Mexican wave of raised eyebrows amongst football fans.

Said owner would surely fail the supposedly rigorous 'fit and proper persons' test needed to gain control of any club.

Why? Well, questions would surely be asked over their judgement, for a start.

Employing someone to a position where they would be called upon to work with youngsters and act as the very public face of your organisation, after said person had served jail time for common assault outside a fast food outlet in Liverpool city centre, would see to that.

Falmouth Packet:

Then there's the FA's code of conduct for managers in the Premier League. It's murky territory - not least because it seems to be a rather fluid concept that the FA chooses to enforce as often as it chooses to ignore -  but the rules stipulate that players and managers should 'display and promote high standards of behaviour,' as well as 'promoting fair play' and 'behaving within the spirit of the laws of the game."

Now, the QPR 'hard man' is by no means the only offender to flout these rules, but his monstrous behaviour over the years should preclude him from managing a side in his local five a side league, let alone an established football club.  Everyone deserves a second chance, as they say, but Barton's chance count must run into double figures by now.

Not convinced? Well, the rap sheet, if you like, of the now infamous Liverpudlian is nothing short of shocking.

It starts in 2004 when he stubbed a lit cigar out in the eye of 15 year old youth player Jamie Tandy at Manchester City's Christmas party - an assault which cost him in excess of £120,000.

But it was in the season of 2007/8 that Barton morphed from bad-tempered idiot into dangerous thug.

Falmouth Packet:

After being arrested for a late night scuffle in Liverpool he was charged with assault and affray, but the climax in what was a vicious and violent season for him, culminated in a sickening and cowardly attack on team-mate Ousmane Dabo which left the Frenchman unconscious and scarred for life after needing hospital treatment.

Both incidents meant Barton was jailed for 6 months.

But it doesn't end there, he was cited and banned in 2010 for punching Blackburn Rovers' Morten Gamst Pederson, and then of course there is the now-famous incident in the final game of the 2011/12 season where he went berserk against Manchester City and was spotted kneeing and head-butting anyone around him.

In total he has been banned for more than 30 games for various acts of low-level thuggery - that's nearly a whole season's worth of kicking, punching, gouging, butting, and slapping, not to mention spitting in the faces of fans that pay his wages. Is that the kind of man you would want running your club? I would suggest not.

Another ex-Man City player Mario Balotelli's t-shirt famously asked 'why always me?' In Joey Barton's case, it's because it always is.