Joe Public busts someone open they get arrested and locked up and probably bailed to go to court at a later date. Football manager busts someone open and they get to drive themselves home to be voluntarily spoken to later in the week.
Been away for a week and only started reading up on this when I got back. At the moment all that is clear is that after the event Stendel was definitely injured - this is confirmed by our players and also the sky reporter. So far I haven't seen any report from someone who actually saw what happened. It seems unlikely that Stendel just tripped and accidentally knocked his teeth out - if that was the case the club would have said so but in view of the lack of hard facts its understandable that Fleetwood fans and officials are not rushing to condemn Barton yet. Given Bartons past record its easy to jump to conclusions - and they have a good chance of being right - but good chance isn't sufficient to sack or imprison someone . I am sure that the real facts will come to light in due course - if Barton punched or nutted Stendel I would expect him to be fired and given his past spend some time inside, but lets see what happens. We will all look a bit silly if there is video or independent eye witness evidence that shows events didn't happen the way we think they did.