Fleetwood boss Joey Barton will appeal against "incorrect" FA charge

Barton has served a one-match touchline ban following a similar charge relating to an incident at Bristol Rovers over Christmas, when he was again shown a red card.

Barton has until Monday to respond to the latest charge, so will be on the touchline for tomorrow’s League One clash with second-placed Peterborough United at Highbury.

And he protested his innocence vehemently yesterday, when he said of the charge: “100 per cent, it’s incorrect.

“I spoke to the referee after the game, which was following the protocols for that.

“The fourth official was Stuart Butler and I told him at the time he’d made a mistake.

“He has an earpiece in, with information coming in through that. He also has the crowd noise and he’s five or six metres away from me.

“He thinks he’s heard me call the ref a cheat, which I categorically deny.

“That will play itself out. We’ll have to present the evidence, and hopefully Stuart realises he’s made a mistake and we can move on from it.

“It’s an absolute nonsense that we have to go through these procedures. There are more important things going on in the world.

“Unfortunately we’re going to have to deal with it, but it detracts from us being on a really good curve of form and a fantastic team performance.

“I don’t really want to talk about it because it takes away from the players.”

Barton isn’t the only one in hot water after Tuesday’s 1-0 win: striker Ched Evans was shown a straight red card for elbowing Wycombe’s Jason McCarthy in an aerial challenge and faces a three-match ban.

The Cod Army boss believes there was no malice in Evans’ challenge but he confirmed the club will not be appealing that ban.

Barton added: “We had a look back at it. Whilst I feel he doesn’t know where he’s made contact, you’ve got to accept that he does make contact with their player, whether it was accidental or not.

“I can see why the referee sent him off but that wasn’t what the game was like. It was a good game and we were in the ascendancy.

“If anything, I think Ched’s sending-off actually helped us. It seemed to galvanise the rest of the group to get a result in the face of some of the decisions made against our team over the 90 minutes.”