Fleetwood boss Joey Barton says: I'm box-office and I love the attention

Barton said: “You can’t stop someone when they have a love for something.

“I love this game more than anybody. I’ve never taken a backwards step in my life.

“When you live as outlaw, which I did when I was younger, you have to accept outlaw punishments.

“I have to accept that’s my lot, dust myself down and look after myself and the people around me as best I can.”

Barton has taken on the role of pantomime villain, most notably in last week’s draw at Sunderland, but is happy to draw the spotlight away from his players.

He said: “I’m box-office wherever I go.

“Sunderland fans are not bothered about Sunderland. They don’t care about Sunderland.

“They were there to support Joey Barton. I’m so happy, I’m so grateful to them.

“There’s nothing worse than having nobody care about you. There’s nothing worse than having no attention. It’s actually horrible.

“I do it to loads of people when they try and get my attention, I ignore them.

“I love when I go to a stadium and the opposition fans aren’t focusing on their team, they’re not focusing on their players, they’re not focusing on my players – they’re focusing on me.

“That means energy – and energy is powerful if channelled correctly – is being wasted. Our players can focus on their performance.

“Why don’t they just ignore me? Leave me alone. I’d just go away and I wouldn’t have the same impact. But once they take me on, it’s like an endless energy source of inspiration.

“Like the Sunderland fans, it was like a solar panel, absorbing the energy thinking ‘I’m going to need this for the next 12 games’.

“Thanks for charging my batteries, thank you very much. I love it, I absolutely love the role.

“In every great story there is a good guy and a bad guy. For me, I haven’t decided to be the bad guy, but no matter what I do, people have decided to paint me as the bad guy.

“I’m cool with that, there’s got to be the yin and the yang so I’m cool with that.

“It allows me to manage in the way that I want to manage and let’s be honest, we’ve got Fleetwood Town sitting at the top table of League One football in about 16 months, having spent virtually nothing on transfers. Let’s keep rolling.”