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Frozen-out Rangers midfielder Joey Barton has revealed he once challenged Mark Hughes to a fight.
Barton, who looks set to sever all ties with the Ibrox club after serving a two-month suspension, played under Hughes at Queens Park Rangers in 2012 but conceded they failed to get on at Loftus Road.
And in one astonishing incident, the 34-year-old admits he locked the door behind him in Hughes’ office and suggested they sort out their differences with a fight.
Barton discussed his confrontation with current Stoke City boss Hughes on an episode of Sky One’s A League Of Their Own, which will be aired tonight.
Barton said: “I’ve had managers try and fire me up by getting stuck into me.
“One high profile manager, I followed him into his office, locked the door on him and said, ‘come on lets just sort this out, me and you. The only way to sort this out is me and you have a fight cos I hate you so much and you hate me, lets just sort it out and whoever walks out, walks out and we get on with it’.”
After confirming that the manager was Hughes, presenter James Corden pressed Barton on whether they actually fought.
Barton, who was suspended by Rangers in September following a training ground altercation with Andy Halliday, replied: “No, no, no, he was like, ‘what do you mean?’.
“I said: ‘You’re treating my like a k***head, you think I’m a k***head’, and he was like, ‘I obviously can’t fight you, I’m the manager of the football club’, and I was like, ‘oh yeah – actually you can’t’.
“So we had to kind of de-escalate it.”
