It's unclear what point in his career Joey Barton decided to transform from violent street thug into a try-hard social media intellectual, enlightening the Twitter stratosphere with his views on broad topics from political disagreements in the Middle-East to labelling far better players than he such as Thiago Silva as an 'overweight ladyboy' and Neymar as 'overrated'. When the Newcastle hierarchy decided to part ways with the former Newcastle stalwart in the summer of 2011, the newly-reformed 'good boy' was none too pleased and took to his new-found medium to express his utter disdain for the owners that were curtailing his stint on Tyneside.
''Somewhere in those high echelons of NUFC, they have decided I am persona non grata. I am on a free but the honour of wearing those B+W stripes surpasses that. One day the board might realise that, what the shirt signifies. HONOUR and PRIDE. Thanks for your continued support.'' - Joey Barton, August 2011.