Former Manchester City midfielder Joey Barton has hit back at Wayne Rooney with an X-rated rant amid claims of QPR handing Roberto Mancini’s side the Premier League title in 2012.

The fallout from Rooney’s recent comments has reignited debate around one of the most iconic moments in Premier League history; Sergio Aguero’s last-second goal to seal Manchester City’s first title under Sheikh Mansour’s ownership.

Rooney has recently revealed his own personal belief that QPR players had rolled over to allow Manchester City to clinch the title on the final day, sparking widespread criticism from both those around the Etihad Stadium and QPR figures.

Barton’s response marks the latest rebuttal to those accusations, following on from Djibril Cissé’s passionate defence of his former teammates earlier this week. Cissé had already made clear that QPR’s priority on that day was survival, not City’s title hopes.

Now, Barton has gone several steps further, using his podcast to tear apart Rooney’s “conspiracy theory” in typically explosive fashion. At the time, Barton was at the centre of one of the defining flash-points of that dramatic afternoon, as his red card for violent conduct following a clash with Carlos Tevez and later kicking out at Sergio Aguero.

Despite being sent off, Barton insists that neither he nor his teammates had any agenda to help Manchester City win the title, describing the match as a full-blooded contest driven by QPR’s determination to avoid relegation.

Speaking on a recent edition of his Common Sense podcast, Barton has hit out with an X-rated response to Wayne Rooney over the former Manchester United man’s belief that QPR intentionally handed Manchester City the Premier League title in 2012.

“Wayne and the Man United fans, and I know this because there’s loads of Man United fans have come up and asked me did I throw the game, did you do it because you’re Man City, we’ve heard you- No,” said Barton.

“I got told by Bobby Zamora to try and get someone sent off, so I tried to get someone sent off, that’s where the book stops with me. I’d like to sit here and say, ‘Oh yeah the Abu Dhabi mob gave us 16 million in a f****** US bank account’, they didn’t. So your conspiracy theories, Wazza, are untrue.”

Barton continued, “Sometimes some 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, and you want to, ‘Ah we didn’t win the league because there was an agenda against us!’

“It might be the same fellas who say, ‘Look if you get one more hair transplant it might come back, it might grow back this time, this might be the time you get a fringe’. As you’ve 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, and Man United never. Am I happy about that? Abso-f******-lutely because I hate Man United, alright? But I didn’t go out of my way to make City win the league.

“We were intent on QPR staying up, so to say me or Djibril Cisse or Shaun Wright-Phillips or Nedum Onuoha or Paddy Kenny have somehow concocted to make sure youse don’t win the league is b*******. You should have got yourselves in a better position.

“Youse didn’t; Man City have to beat QPR on the last day of the season at home, who are in the bottom four, to win the league. That’s your fault. So the fact that you 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****** win for City, but the lads for QPR made it a lot more difficult.”

Reminded of the fact that Manchester City had to score twice in injury time to salvage the Premier League title, Joey Barton continued, “Again, yeah, you wouldn’t have f****** made them have to score two in injury time.

“So luckily you’ve won a load of leagues Wayne, but that one wasn’t one that is a conspiracy theory that got away from you. That was just a f****** mad result on a mad day. And by the way, that was better for footy.

“City win the first Premier League, happy days. And QPR stayed up, happy days. And you c**** were all crying on the pitch at f****** Stadium of f****** light or wherever you was, which is f****** triple whammy. Get f*****.”

Barton’s fiery comments are likely to spark further reaction online, especially from Manchester United supporters still haunted by the events of that afternoon.

For Manchester City fans, however, Barton’s defence – and his mocking of Rooney’s claims – only reinforces the widely held belief that Sergio Aguero’s goal remains one of football’s purest, unscripted moments.

As for the wider debate, the resurfacing of this 2012 storyline serves as a reminder of how that day continues to define the modern rivalry between Manchester’s two clubs. With City now chasing a seventh Premier League crown under Pep Guardiola alone, talk of conspiracies only seems to fuel the mythology surrounding English football’s most dramatic title finish.

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