Barton happy to stay at Burnley beyond the summer

Barton arrived on a free transfer in August, after leaving QPR in the summer, and has become an integral part of Sean Dyche's side, making 18 starts, and scoring in his last two appearances.

The 33-year-old has spent most of his career at the top level, and still feels he could play in the Premier League, but, with his contract only running to the end of the season, is his future at the club dependent on going up? “Not really. I’m enjoying my time here. Obviously it will depend on lots of factors.

“If the club come and offer me a year now, as it stands, I’d definitely want to do it.

“But the gaffer might be fed up of me in six months, you never know!

“It’s been good. There’s no pressure on my side of it."

He feels the move has been mutually beneficial: “I am 33, sitting there in the summer, everyone thinks you’re done.

“I probably thought my phone would ring a lot more than it did. Then it did ring, I thought this was going somewhere, then that was gone.

“It reiterates how fickle this industry is and how lazy people are. There’s a lot of lazy people out there. If you did your due diligence and were smart and a forward-thinking organisation – certainly in the Championship – I was a no-brainer really if you wanted to get promotion.

“You see people spending money on players in that position, I am thinking: ‘Wow’. But Burnley are obviously smarter than the average bear when it comes to that, you can see that in the recruitment over recent years.

“They operate within the means of the club and they do prove you can get consistently good players if you are just smart and do your research.”

And he firmly believes Burnley can bounce back to the top flight, ahead of Monday night's key clash with promotion rivals Derby County at Turf Moor: "I think we have the best manager in the league. We have arguably the best keeper in the league, one of the hottest strikers, so every indication for me points that way.

"We are confident as a group, we know the strength we have got and have players who have done it before.

"Derby have been knocking on the door for a couple of years, Boro are having a renaissance. I think it is really exciting. We are in a good spot but there is a long way to go."