Joey Barton issues Twitter apology for role in drama-filled showdown.

Joey Barton used Twitter to explain his role in one of the most tumultuous 90 minutes in Premiership history that saw Manchester City take title from Manchester United, writes Ronan Shields.

Barton used his Twitter account, which boasts almost 1.5m followers, to issue an apology (see below) for his sending-off and subsequent violent conduct earlier today during QPR’s crunch match with champions Manchester City.

Source: Joey Barton

The dramatic game, which saw Barton’s QPR side come from behind to lead the league winners at one point but not before the player, who has served time in prison on charges of violent conduct, was sent off and then subsequently confronted other opponents.

In his series of Tweets, he presented the reasons for his actions, directly below, although he also used the medium to take aim at Carlos Tevez accusing him of starting the mellee, see second image below. 

Although, Barton also used Twitter, the medium he has used best to rebuild his reputation, to congratulate his old club on winning its first top-flight crown in over 40 years, which it achieved by scoring two injury time goals to emerge 3-2 victors and claim the title.

Eager to ride the wave of positive publicity, Manchester City’s PR machine also wasted no time in spreading the marketing message by issuing images from the Etihad celebrations on Twitter.

Of course, some of the marketing was a little more overt than the rest with the club wasting no time in using it to remind fans to pre-order their memorabilia, no doubt the stadium's official gift shop will remain open a bit longer tonight and doing a brisk business for much of the next week. 

It will be interesting to see how quickly it takes for the club’s merchandise unit to issue a recording of this afternoon’s game on DVD.  

Understandably, Manchester United’s players have been reticent about using Twitter thus far given the narrow nature of their loss but the club’s goalkeeper David De Gea did use Twitter to say the team would come back stronger next season.

However, Bolton-defender Fabrice Muamba, who suffered a Cardiac Arrest while playing on the pitch earlier in the season, did find time to make light of his earlier troubles on Twitter, see below, despite his side joining Blackburn Rovers and Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Premiership drop zone.