JOEY Barton wanted and expected to stay in the Premier League after parting company with Queens Park Rangers in the summer.

But he is sure his absence will last only one season, such is his conviction that Burnley can break the mould of relegated teams and go straight back up: as champions.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think we could win the league,” said Barton, determined to secure a promotion hat-trick.

“I’ve been in the Championship twice, I’ve won it once with Newcastle and got out of it by hook or by crook the same year Burnley did with QPR.

“I’m not coming into this league to sit mid-table somewhere, I don’t really want to do the play-offs again because that was quite heart-wrenching, especially the way we did it.

“The goal is to be better than what’s happened before I think, as a football club. I think the football club looks to have been really progressing, certainly since the Premier League money, it looks like they’ve utilised it well.

“It looks like they’re spending on the training ground, spending on the infrastructure at the club.

“They finished second last time out, and I know they’ve lost Danny Ings and Jason Shackell and Kieran Trippier – any side would struggle to absorb those losses – but the manager and the team here have recruited and the goal has to be to win the Championship.

“I think that’s what we’re all here for.

“I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t think we had an opportunity to do that.

“It’s going to be a lot of hard work but certainly judging off the first few days’ training the hard work and the desire is there in abundance.”

The midfielder added: “I think this club’s progressing.

“I don’t think it’s like after the Lord Mayor’s Show in terms of Premier League-relegated, I actually think it’s going to progress forward. The aim has to be consolidation in the Premier League and build what the likes of Southampton and Swansea have done.

“If I didn’t think they wanted to do that or were capable of doing that I wouldn’t be here.

“I could have gone and played in one of these almost exhibition leagues where you get an awful lot of money and it’s a very easy standard and it’s generally a nice climate.

“But that isn’t for me, I’m a competitive animal and I’ve got a lot to offer.

“I thought it was at Premier League level.

“It doesn’t seem they concluded the same as me.

“I have a lot to prove, I want to get back to playing in the Premier League.

“It would be great to do it with Burnley and it would be great to do it with this set of people because I think they’re ready for it.

“Hopefully I can just add something to that.”

The idea that he could play in the Premier League with Burnley suggests that there is an option to stay beyond the one-year deal he signed last week.

“For me that’s entirely up to the club. I’m just really happy to get in here and get working towards it,” said Barton.

“What the future holds, I don’t know. If people want me to stay here, all being well, I will,” said Barton, who was close to wearing a different claret and blue shirt and preserving his Premier League status with West Ham.

Barton was made an offer, had talks, a medical and even took part in a training session only for the Hammers to pull out at the last minute last month.

He feels they, and other Premier League clubs, were blinkered by “the baggage”.

“From time to time with me I think people actually think Charles Manson or Fred West are probably going to turn up in the building. That’s the ridiculous legacy I have in football, which is baffling,” he said.

“I am hard work, and I am opinionated, but if you handle it with respect and people talk to you, I’ve never had an issue with anyone.

“I have got a quick temper, which makes me the player I am, but learning how to handle it with kid gloves has been the real challenge for me as a person and a professional.

“I think I’ve got a good hold on it now. I should do at 33.

“I wish some of the stuff hadn’t happened, but it has, and it’s been phenomenal from a learning perspective.

“Obviously whenever you see your name and you see the baggage in 2004 and 2006… I almost disassociate it from myself because it’s not the person that sits in front of you today.

“But it is a part of my character that’s done that.

“I can’t sit here and try to justify that, a lot of it was unjustifiable.

“For me I’ve paid by dues. I’ve gone ‘OK, that’s not acceptable, I’m a young man who was behaving completely unacceptably culminating with me going to jail.

“What can I do? I can’t go back and change that and I think I have tried to progress myself in the right manner off the pitch.”

Starting a family has been a big influence.

“That process is accelerated by having kids.

“You start not being the most important person in the world, which someone with an ego like mine at the time thought I was, whereas now the kids are the most important thing,” said the father of two.

“They’re going to have to go to school or have to try to grow up in the world and try to justify you acting like an idiot in a city centre.

“They do give you that foresight of what your legacy’s going to be as a parent first and foremost, and if you get that right everything takes care of itself.

“People are quick to bandy stuff that happened to me in 2006, 2007. I was a young, insecure scared little boy who didn’t know how to behave.”

Clubs have been put off in the past, most recently West Ham, but he thinks their loss will be Burnley’s gain.

“That’s my honest belief,” he said.

“You lose one opportunity and another one presents itself and I’m delighted to be here.

“I think this is probably a better fit for me.

“Obviously it’s not Premier League football, which I wanted to play.

“But I think the aim is to be there relatively quickly and I believe the manager that’s here, the staff here and the group that’s here is a great fit for me.

“Every cloud for me, there’s always a silver lining, especially when you’ve had some of the clouds I’ve had in my life, you have to take that approach.

“Hopefully my legacy here will be that despite a few stupid tweets, I was a resounding success at this football club.

“That’s what I’m here for.”