Joey Barton and Thiago Silva kickstart Twitter war

A war of words between broke out between Joey Barton and Thiago Silva after Barton publicly slammed Brazilian prodigy Neymar amongst others, leaving his compatriot and PSG defender Silva fuming.

“I can hear a lot of people criticising the Selecao [Brazilian squad],” he told L’Equipe.

“There is even a Marseille player; I cannot remember his name, an Englishman, who has said bad things about Neymar, and Brazilian football, but also about Beckham and Ibra [Ibrahimovic]. As no one is talking about him, it seems fun to him to criticise great players for people to know he exists.

“It gives me much more desire to win to silence that Englishman. What does he know about Brazilian football? I don’t remember having played against him in the national team.”

“That person must never forget on Auriverde [gold and green] shirt there is more stars than on any other shirt. Five World Cups. That deserves some respect.”

Joey Barton, never one to hold himself back, came up with the following tweet: