Barrie McKay an unbelievable signing for Fleetwood Town says boss Joey Barton after 'last-minute' Sunderland approach

And the Town boss says the streamlined Fleetwood hierarchy helped to get the deal done.

Barton said: “I played with Barrie at Rangers, then he got a move to Forest and did really, really well.

“They intended to sell him to Olympiakos and it never quite materialised. They ended up selling him to Swansea under Graham Potter and again he did really well.

“The new manager (Steve Cooper) has come in and there’s a change of ideas. I couldn’t believe he was available because you would expect a Championship club or one of the big Scottish teams to take a player of his quality.

“We’d monitored him all the way through but late in the window he was available at Fleetwood prices and luckily for us we got him signed.

“At the last minute Sunderland tried to do the deal but we had the paperwork done, so it’s nice to put one across them again.

“The beauty of such a small club is that there’s no real bureaucracy and we can get things done quickly. We were all in the same room on Friday night.

“At this club everyone lives in each other’s pockets and wants the same thing. Everyone wants to see the town of Fleetwood do well.

“The speed we could move at gave us a great advantage in the market place on Friday night. We could get our business done, then relax and look forward to Saturday’s game.”

Fellow Friday signing Lewis Gibson made his debut in that game against Doncaster Rovers. MacKay and Town’s third deadline-day loan signing, Norwich City’s Isak Thorvaldsson, have since joined up with their new team-mates.

Barton added: “Isak is Iceland’s Under-19 captain, a player we have monitored. We weren’t sure if he was going to go out on loan or not.

“He doesn’t carry himself or play like an 18-year-old. He’s a left-footed bulldozer.

“He can play as a number 10, centre-half, left centre-mid or left wing-back and we need versatility in our group because we want to play players in different positions to see just how good they can become.

“We’ll integrate them into our group, which sets us up nicely going forward.

“We have a smaller group but all believe we can do well.

“We’ve got reinforcements coming in and it gives us a lovely platform to go into the business end of the season with a defence we can rely upon.

“It’s kept two clean sheets and managed to keep Doncaster out for the majority of the game, and that gives us confidence.”