Angry: Barton takes offence to Neymar’s indifference (Picture: AP)

Joey Barton has gone on another misguided Twitter rant after Brazilian star Neymar said he had never heard of the Marseille midfielder.

A clearly irked Barton then accused the talented forward of being ‘perverse’, playing in an ‘amazon jungle league’ and even took a dig at England’s centre-back pairing of Chris Smalling and Gary Cahill.

Barton, 30, was one of the many voices to express his disappointment with the Santos striker’s underwhelming performance in Brazil’s 2-1 loss to England last night, saying: ‘This Neymar fella is massively overrated. Not in the same street as Messi or Ronaldo.

‘I wouldn’t pay the £40-50 million there asking for Neymar. Not a chance. #showpony.’


Disappointing: Brazil’s Neymar (Picture: AP)

After the match, the 21-year-old was asked for his thoughts on Barton’s comments, to which he casually replied: ‘I don’t know who he is. I just have to keep doing my job for the Selecao.



‘It did not go as I had expected or wanted. I would have liked to help the team more, but today was not my day. Next time.’

But although Barton’s initial view was perfectly justified, the spikey Scoucer took offence to Neymar’s dismissal of his opinion, and responded with a barrage of defensive tweets, which later turned offensive.

‘Looks like Neymar wasn’t happy with what I said about him. Just that I read and saw all this hype about him and expected something more…,’ said Barton.

‘Football is a game of opinions. If you don’t like that, this is not the game for you. I don’t get how people accept journalists calling out players for performance or attitude but when another player does, its deemed incorrect or not in the spirit of the game. It’s perverse.

‘If you a joiner and a guy who isn’t qualified criticises your work, you’d just dismiss it, probably utter “What do you know!” Now if on the other hand its another joiner or someone with some credibility in that field, you might not agree but it also might be correct. Either way there is some validity to their observations. What people have to remember is, the tallest trees always catch the most wind.

‘Neymar was playing after all against Cahill and Smalling, no disrespect to them but their not exactly Baresi and Beckenbuer and he never got a kick. I just refuse to believe the hype.#showpony’

After being informed by talk-show host, Piers Morgan, that Neymar had merely stated that he didn’t know he was, Barton replied with: ‘I’ll introduce myself to him if he ever decides to leave the sanctuary of the amazon jungle league…’