Joey Barton has claimed Sunderland fans 'don't care' about their club and were only there to support him during last Tuesday's draw with his Fleetwood side.
Barton's side held the Black Cats to a 1-1 draw at the Stadium of Light but the game was overshadowed by a number of his baiting post-match comments about Sunderland.
But the former Newcastle midfielder is happy to remain the pantomime villain and has looked to continue to divert attention away from his players - who are in the League One promotion picture alongside the Black Cats - by making more disparaging remarks about Sunderland.
“I’m box-office wherever I go,” Barton told the Fleetwood Weekly News.
“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.”
