Joey Barton signs for the Clarets

Last updated : 27 August 2015 By Tony Scholes

It might be a shock to some that a player who has, at times, not been the best behaved of footballers, and that's an understatement, but there is some real respect between him and our manager Sean Dyche.

Dyche said after the signing was confirmed: "I'm delighted that we have Joey on board. He was very respectful when speaking about our club at the end of last season and during the summer. We had many conversations and he made it clear he was very interested in what we are about and that coming here was something he would consider.

"He is a player who is in demand and who others think highly of. I know there is other stuff in his life and character, but on the pitch I think everyone speaks well of him and he is certainly someone who I think can get the culture and the understanding of what we do here."

Barton, having spoken to Dyche, said: "We spoke at length about football over lunch yesterday. I knew as soon as I left his house that I wanted to play for Burnley. He's the most impressive guy I've sat in front of for a long, long time."

He's played for four clubs prior to joining us. He started at Man City for whom he made 130 league appearances before moving to Newcastle in the summer of 2007 for a fee not far short of £6 million. By then he'd made his England debut in a friendly against Spain but it proved to be his only cap.

There were 81 league appearances for Newcastle before a move to QPR four years ago where he added another 93 appearances. He scored seven goals in the league for both clubs.

His time at Loftus Road was interrupted by a loan at Marseille which came about because of an incident on the pitch at the Etihad. He was sent off for elbowing Carlos Tevez in the face but after being shown the red card he kicked Sergio Aguero in the back of the knee before attempting to head butt Vincent Kompany. He landed himself a twelve match ban and was banished to France for a year. He's been sent off three times since, once for Marseille and twice for QPR.

Dyche has gone on to say: "Someone said 'how would you handle him'? I said 'I wouldn't handle him, he's 32 he's not 18, he's not a kid. He's bright enough and rounded with the ups, downs, ins and outs of football, and he's a very good player."

Barton broke the news via his Twitter account.