Simon Grayson on Joey Barton's mind games: 'It's all put to bed'

When asked if it was a case of the master overcoming the apprentice, Grayson replied: “Not really, it was one of those games – Blackpool v Fleetwood.

“Joey said what he did before the game and after the game, but it’s part of history now.

“We’ve all said things we probably ended up regretting before games and after the games but ultimately you learn from anything you do, no matter if you’ve been in the game a year, 15 years, 25 or whatever.

“It’s all about learning from the experiences, moving on to the next game and not replicating those mistakes if you have made them.

“The biggest thing about last weekend is that we won another match. We did it in a certain way to get three points.

“I said during the build-up to the game it was all about getting the win, regardless of it being a game involving two teams that are geographically close to each other.

“The biggest part of it was that they were above us in the division and we wanted to catch them as well as the other teams above us.

“That was the most significant and pleasing part of it all, and once we did that we put it to bed and began to get prepared for the game after that.”

Barton went on to claim his line-up had been leaked days before the Fylde coast clash, something Grayson vehemently denied.

“I put it to bed last weekend because I can 100 per cent guarantee we didn’t know their team,” Grayson added.

“We didn’t even talk about Fleetwood until 1.30pm and then again at 2pm, when the team sheet came through.

“I can reassure Joey we didn’t know their team.”

Barton said on Thursday that Town had dealt with the matter “in-house”.

Pool head to Sunderland’s Stadium of Light today, looking to build on their recent good form which has seen them win six of their last eight games.

“We’ve lost three league games all season, which isn’t bad,” Grayson said.

“It would have been nice to turn some of those draws into wins but we’ve given ourselves a good platform.

“Nothing is ever achieved in December – it’s where you are in May that counts.

“But we want to be going into this hectic period when you play a lot of games having the confidence to keep getting results.

“Confidence plays a massive part in any footballer’s life but we’ve got to make sure we’re not too complacent, which I certainly won’t allow.

“It’s also better to be confident rather than not confident, that’s for sure.”