Barton’s adversary on this occasion was ex-Liverpool Champions League winner and German international Dietmar Hamann who took exception to a tweet the Marseille ‘midfieldeur’ had sent.

Revealing a rumour that team-mate Loic Remy would be heading to Queens Park Rangers instead of Newcastle, Hamann hit back telling Barton to be careful what he said. The ex-Manchester City teammates then spent the next couple of hours slagging each other off like two of Eastenders’ finest.

Match highlights included Barton taking the personal route and calling Hamann “a f*ck up” and more cruelly so, “a nugget”. What’s more, whilst using his Einstein-like intelligence to put down the German, Barton misspelled the word ‘were‘. Aiding him in his moment of need, followers were quick to correct him which enabled him to amend his mistake.

Making sure it was clearly visible, the Scouser rewrote his excerpt as follows:

After vowing not to join in on the insults, Hamann responded brilliantly, describing Barton as “a player who writes for the Big Issue” whilst addressing him ironically as a #englandinternational.

Barton logged into his account this morning to apologise, saying “I’ve slept on it. I have no right to question a man I hardly know. I must, therefore apologise for my part in last nights heated exchange.”

Hamann has chosen not to comment directly about last night’s pantomime.

The phenomenon of professional football players making embarrassing gaffes or airing their dirty laundry publicly is not a new one. Becoming increasingly renowned as a bit of a minefield for footballers, Twitter has seen countless instances where opinionated players have made comments above their station and got in trouble for it.

The first act of brainless stupidity to hit the Premier League came from the account of former Liverpool winger  Ryan Babel. In January 2011, Babel tweeted a picture of referee Howard Webb in a Manchester United shirt (left) following Liverpool’s 1-0 defeat at Old Trafford. As comically groundbreaking as it was, with just one click of a button the Dutchman was hit with a £10,000 fine from the FA.

In the wake of John Terry’s defence case against racist abuse charges, loquacious left-back Ashley Cole exorcised his anger by calling English football’s governing body, The FA, a “bunch of twats”.

Articulate and well planned it may have been, but the comment was retweeted almost 19,000 times, drawing attention to his outburst and landing the Chelsea and England defender with a fine for misconduct.

In response to Cole’s involvement in the Terry/Ferdinand case, Rio Ferdinand, Anton’s brother and Manchester United and (then) England defender chipped in by retweeting somebody who called Cole a “choc ice”, hinting at him being black on the outside and white on the inside.

Although Ferdinand denied any wrongdoing, The England international was charged with improper conduct by the FA and stung with a £45,000 fine.

In modern day society, one has to be careful with what one says. The ever politically correct world in which we live in Britain means the utmost attention must be paid when making your views public. If only we could say the same for Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny, who took it upon himself to say that fellow teammate Aaron Ramsey, who had posted a picture of himself attending a golf event, looked ‘like a rapist’. The Arsenal shot-stopper avoided sanctioning, immediately apologising for his actions.

Once jibed by former Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp for missing a chance that his “wife could have scored,” then Spurs forward Darren Bent went on a Twitter rampage aiming comments about his prolonged transfer towards the club’s chairman Daniel Levy.

Now an Aston Villa outcast, Bent raged: “Do I wanna go Hull City NO. Do I wanna go Stoke NO do I wanna go Sunderland YES so stop f****** around, Levy,”

Unsurprisingly, he was heavily fined by the Tottenham chairman.

This is just a selection of social networking blunders made by our treasured heroes of the Premier League. Admittedly, it is only a minor selection of tweets that cause offence, and those that do are dealt with accordingly.

Fines aside, a valuable lesson should be learnt here but as long as players can afford to pay the penalties, the minority of outspoken footballers will always take advantage of their platform.