Strange decision for Barton to move on but with a three-year contract on offer and topflight football (albeit, with respect Scottish Premiership) guess you cannot blame him for going.
He'll (you would think) have assured 1st team football and I would have to think the deal worked well for all concerned.
Decent player, who I did like, but wasn't someone I wanted to play central defence regularly. Think Davies coming in might have done it for him as he looked very good at Exeter and would have been ahead of Barton, as would Burgess, Clarke and (when fit) Whatmough so he was fifth choice you think at best in defence and down the order in midfield.