WITH Joey Barton’s season reaching a premature end, team-mate Jonas Gutierrez wants the dressing room to pull together and prove that Newcastle United can win their Premier League survival fight without the temperamental midfielder.

Barton’s return to the Newcastle starting line-up for the first time since January 28 at Anfield on Sunday led to many suggesting that his combative mentality would be ideal in the relegation run-in.

But, in a further moment of madness from the 26-year-old, a two-footed lunge on Xabi Alonso 13 minutes from time has left manager Alan Shearer planning for the final three matches without him.

Shearer is expected to hit Barton with a maximum £150,000 fine for his latest act of stupidity, while he could escape a further six-match ban if referee Phil Dowd stipulates that he was shown the red card for serious foul play in his report.

If Dowd states that Barton was instantly dismissed for an act of violent conduct – usually the term used for an off the ball incident – the Football Association are likely to trigger the remaining six matches of a suspended suspension, which he was handed for a training ground attack on Manchester City team-mate Ousmane Dabo.

But his team-mates on Tyneside feel that now is not the time to concentrate on Barton, with Monday’s visit of Boro in mind.

“I didn’t see the Barton challenge during the match,”

said Gutierrez. “But it’s difficult when you are at Liverpool because you can get frustrated when you are losing at Liverpool.

“He is missing three matches but we can’t think about Joey Barton now, we have to think about the players who will be playing. Whoever is playing will know that we have three matches to stay in the Premier League – that’s the only important thing for Newcastle United.”

Barton’s situation helped to detract the attention from Shearer’s third defeat from five matches in charge, form which has done nothing to improve their position in the bottom three.

And with Newcastle not scheduled to play Boro until next Monday, Hull City and Sunderland, who face Stoke (h) and Bolton (a) respectively, have an opportunity to increase their advantage of the Magpies.

There is still no sense of panic on the Tyneside training ground, although there is an acceptance that Newcastle could be on their way out of the top flight for the first time since 1993 if they fail to see off their Teesside rivals.

It’s a situation Gutierrez, an Argentina international, was not contemplating when he was crowned man of the match on his Premier League debut at Manchester United on the opening weekend of the season in August.

“For me I would never have imagined being in this situation when I moved from Real Mallorca to the Premier League,” said Gutierrez, who cost Newcastle around £5.2m.

“But this is the situation we are in and we have to think and concentrate on getting out of it. We have possibilities to stay up still. If we can take six points from the two home matches it will be a different situation.

“It’s a difficult situation that we are now faced with.

We will have to prepare for that like they are two cup finals.

“We know we need to perform better and get a better result against Middlesbrough – it’s vital. If we don’t, it will be very, very difficult to stay in the Premier League.”