Joey Barton has hit out at Man Utd legend Wayne Rooney over his “conspiracy theories” around Man City’s dramatic Premier League title win in 2012.
The Red Devils were beaten to the Premier League title on the final day of the 2012 season despite their 1-0 win over Sunderland.
Man City were losing 2-1 at home to relegation-threatened QPR going into second-half stoppage time before Roberto Mancini’s side scored two goals in two minutes and five seconds to take the victory and the title.
Wayne Rooney has sincevoiced skepticism around Sergio Aguero’s late winner, while he criticised QPR’s players for “celebrating after the game with the City players”.
Djibril Cisse hit back at those accusations from Rooney last week and insisted it was understandable that he celebrated with compatriot Samir Nasri as both teams had achieved something with QPR staying up.
Cisse told FourFourTwo: “I’m not going to take this accusation any longer. I was celebrating with Samir Nasri.
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“I didn’t celebrate with Mario Balotelli, Sergio Aguero or anybody else. I celebrated with my brother, Samir, who had been a friend of mine for 15 years.
“I was happy for my friend and also that we managed to stay up. I don’t care about Man City. My friend finally won the Premier League after many years in England and I was happy for him and also for me. That’s all.”
Barton, who made a fool out of himself after being sent off, got involved in the debate after Cisse’s comments, he began: “There’s been a bit of a spat online between Djibril Cisse and Wayne Rooney. Rooney has said that the game was bent and that QPR threw that game.”
On Man Utd legend Rooney, Barton added: “I’m only commenting on it because he referenced me in it. Half of our team knew we were safe and stayed up and half of our team didn’t. You can see when you see it.
“Five or six of the team did. I can hear it getting shouted from the sidelines. We had all been in City’s academy. You had Nedum Onuoha, Shaun Wright-Phillips and myself. So we would have wanted Manchester City to win the league over Man United, make no bones about that.
“But at the time, we were fighting for our own survival, so we had to better other people’s results on that day to stay up. As it was, we all got beat.
“I have to disagree with Wayne. Wayne is trying to say that this game is some kind of bent fixture, that the lads had given up. He does say Paddy Kenny has basically thrown the two goals in that lead to City winning the league. I don’t think Paddy knew.
“You might say Paddy should have done better with the goals, but I don’t think Paddy Kenny is the type of lad to throw a game to help Man City win the league.”
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He then ramped up the expletives, Barton continued: “So Wayne, and the other Man United fans – and I know loads of Man United fans have come up and asked me – no. I got told by Bobby Zamora to get someone sent off, so I tried. That’s where the book stops with me.
“Your conspiracy theories, Wazza, are untrue. Sometimes people tell you stuff in life and you want to believe it because it fits your narrative and you want to have that cognitive dissonance.
“It might be the same fellas who were saying that if you get one more hair transplant it might come back. This might be the time you get a fringe. As you found out, that is complete nonsense.
“Stop wasting your time on nonsense. The game at Man City was not thrown. Man City won the league, Man United never. Am I happy about that? Abso-f***ing-lutely, because I hate Man United. But I didn’t go out my way to make City win the league.
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“To say that me, or Djibril Cisse, or Shaun Wright-Phillips, or Nedum Onuoha, or Paddy Kenny have somehow concocted to make sure you don’t win the league is b****cks.
“You should have got yourselves in a better position. You didn’t. Man City had to beat QPR on the last day of the season at home, who were in the bottom four. That’s your fault.
“The fact he’s even had a sniff of winning the league is a testament to the lads at QPR and the battle they put up, because that was an easy f***ing win for City.”
Barton finished by adding: “QPR stayed up, happy days. City won the league, happy days. And you ****s were all crying on the pitch at the f***ing Stadium of f***ing Light or Middlesborough or wherever you was, which is f***ing triple whammy. Get f***ed.”
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