Joey Barton was not a fan of how he was portrayed in the Scottish media during his very short stint with Rangers.
He has thus intelligently decided to avoid any headlines by returning to the Premier League, where journalists generally tend to leave polarising players alone.
Barton is set to make his comeback for Burnley after the Premier League side agreed to re-sign the controversial midfielder who played for the club during its Championship-winning campaign last season.
Burnley announced on Tuesday that, pending international clearance, Barton would be rejoining the first-team squad until the end of the season.
BREAKING: Joey Barton set to re-sign for Burnley on a short-term deal until the end of the season, subject to international clearance. pic.twitter.com/7TOKu99IwK
— Burnley FC (@BurnleyOfficial) December 20, 2016
The 34-year-old decided to give Scottish football a go in the summer but his time with Rangers was unsurprisingly marred and cut short due to a number of off-the-field indiscretions which included a training ground bust up and charges for betting on football games.
Barton returned to training with Burnley recently and was only delighted to have been re-added to the world-famous club WhatsApp group.
And that's the most important thing https://t.co/eugJrZ6JoR
— FootballJOE (@FootballJOE) December 8, 2016
And Barton’s clearly lost none of his confidence in spite of his less-than-memorable stay with Rangers.
“That was the funny thing about it. So we go 23 unbeaten at Burnley and end up winning the league which isn’t an easy thing to do. I go up to Scotland and play eight games,” Barton told BBC Sport.
“So in the calendar year, I’ve lost one game which happened to be the Old Firm at Celtic.
“I was unbeaten in 30 competitive games so I’m looking at that going ‘OK, you’re copping a bit of flak everywhere’ but also, internally, I’m going ‘OK, you can’t be that bad a footballer, regardless of what the Scottish media is saying about you.'”
Catch up with this week’s episode of Football Friday Live:
