It’s a proud moment for any footballer who returns to a former club.
Joey Barton is back in Burnley’s WhatsApp group, and he couldn’t hide the coy smile that spread across his goateed face when he announced his return.
The polarising midfielder has returned to the training pitch of the club that he left on a free transfer in May and he’s slowly re-integrating himself among his former teammates.
Barton moved to Rangers at the start of the season but saw his contract terminated last month after a turbulent time which saw the 34-year-old suspended for a training ground bust-up and investigated for betting on football games.
Rangers and Joey Barton have agreed to terminate his contract with immediate effect. Neither Rangers nor Joey Barton will comment further.
— Rangers Football Club (@RangersFC) November 10, 2016
Barton is not able to re-sign for Burnley officially until the January transfer window opens and manager Sean Dyche hastened to point out that the midfielder was simply training with the squad in the meantime.
“Joey has been in with us training, with us, to get himself fit, not with the first team,” Dyche told the Burnley Express. “Beyond that, anything else is for the future, he’s just getting himself fit.”
But the wheels certainly seem to be in motion for a new contract as Barton has revealed that he’s now been reintroduced to the Clarets’ WhatsApp group.
“Yeah I’ve been allowed back in,” Barton told BBC Sport.
“Heats (Tom Heaton) put me back in against my (will). I didn’t want to go back in but he was like ‘No, you’re back training at the training ground so it’s important you go in.’
“I don’t have that much interaction with it because I feel like you’ve got to earn your stripes out on the training pitch.”
Barton’s unsuccessful spell with Rangers did nothing to shake his confidence and, in spite of facing criticism from the media, he has pointed to his impressive playing record in 2016.
“It was incredibly tough,” Barton said of the time that he left the WhatsApp group in the summer.
“I’d shared a bond with the lads. You look at it now and I don’t think anyone will go 23 unbeaten this season in the Championship because it’s a tough league.
“People forget the nature of a 46-game season and I think that league’s stronger again because of the teams that have dropped into it and the financial powers of some of the other sides in there.
“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.
“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.'”
