Joey Barton reveals what he told his Fleetwood players as cards flew against Portsmouth

And the Fleetwood boss believes referee Alan Young set a precedent with his bookings, which led to the spate of cautions in the 0-0 draw at Fratton Park.

That led to Barton warning his team they were walking a disciplinary tightrope after a first half in which seven yellow cards were seen.

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Many observers felt Fleetwood adopted an approach based around disrupting the home side’s flow, with keeper Craig MacGillivray talking about handling the visitor’s ‘bullying tactics’.

Barton saw the game as one which was played in the right spirit, however, between two sides with strong League One aspirations this term.

He told BBC Radio Lancashire: ‘We spoke to them (his players) about everything we needed to do.

‘You have to be on a bed of discipline.

‘You can’t come to these places and go down to 10 because it’s a tough task as it is.

‘They had four booked and we had three booked, so it was something we had to be aware of.

‘I didn’t think it was that type of game.

‘It was two really good sides competing and two teams who want to be at the top end of the table.

‘I felt it was played in the right spirit.

‘The ref sometimes when he books players early for the stuff he did, he doesn’t give himself much leeway.

‘I don’t like to see referees booking players in the first 10 or 15 minutes unless it’s a really bad tackle.

‘He sets a precedent because he has to follow suit and you end up with a lot of players booked in a game where there wasn’t any bad tackles or mad moments.

‘It was just a really competitive League One fixture.’

Barton highlighted how it was his team who could have left with all three points if it wasn’t for the excellence of MacGillivray in denying sub James Hill’s close-range header at the death.

The Scouser felt that would’ve been reward for a performance where his side grafted to deny Pompey the space to be effective in attacking areas.

He added: ‘If we’d won that there it would’ve have been the cherry on the top of a really good performance.

‘But credit to their goalkeeper, I thought he made an outstanding save first half from Wes Burns.

‘Then right at the end he’s produced the goods to give them a point, because usually when you get a player coming and heading it as aggressively as James has on target it’s tough for the keeper to keep out.

‘So credit to him he’s made a fantastic save for him team.

‘It was a really disciplined performance.

‘We asked certain players who are maybe known for their more attacking offensives side of the game to do a shift without the ball.

‘You know there are going to be times when you come here that you are going to be under pressure due to their quality.

‘Coming to Portsmouth was a good test because they were in a good vein of form before we got here.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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