Danny Mills has compared Joey Barton's short temper with Roy Keane after playing with the current Bristol Rovers boss when the pair were at Manchester City.

The once-capped England international came through at City, with Mills joining the club in 2004, and they would go on to be teammates for three years.

During that time, Barton would make plenty of headlines for the wrong reasons, including stubbing a cigarette out in the eye of a teammate Jamie Tandy, whilst also attacking another City player in Ousmane Dabo.

Speaking on the Undr The Cosh Podcast, Mills was reflecting on those moments, as he gave an insight into playing with the Liverpudlian.

"Joey's like a poor man's Roy Keane. When you look at Keane, there's a switch that goes and then that's it, there's no coming back from it, Joey's exactly the same.

"There's no remorse, no sorrowfulness, or 'I shouldn't have done that', it's 'deserved it'. No Joey, you can't just go and beat people up."

Barton went on to have a successful career after leaving City, featuring for Newcastle, Marseille and Burnley among others.

He remains in football now, having taken over at the Memorial Stadium last month, and he is tasked with keeping the team in League One.

The verdict

In truth, this won't come as a surprise, because everyone remembers what Barton was like and he certainly appeared to have a short fuse, and some will say that remains the case!

It should be noted that Mills does go on to praise Barton's determination in the chat, as well as praising him for pushing himself to achieve all he could in the game.

That's the sort of attitude Rovers fans will want to rub off on the team for the remainder of the campaign as they face a real challenge to survive.

Thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.