Alienated Newcastle footballer Joey Barton has been telling followers on Twitter about his "respect" for German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Scouser Barton has informed his 170,665 readers that the author of Beyond Good And Evil was "a real nutter" who in his prime was "as hard as Vinnie Jones".
Tough tackling Joey openly identifies with bad boy Nietzsche, who defined the problematic relationship between the individual and his football club in his controversial treatise Will To Power.
Joey Barton, who was once called a Nietzschean Antichrist by an Everton fan, claims to have developed the mental strength of a Superman by studying the philosophical statements of the German:
"That which does not kill us makes us stronger" tweeted Joey after being given a free transfer and told to train alone at Newcastle Football Club.
Barton, who is currently deconstructing Thus Spake Zarathustra on Twitter, has told readers that his identification with Nietzsche started when he was a young tearaway growing up on a Merseyside council estate:
"It defined my existence" tweeted Joey: "I drew a lot of inspiration from seeing 'God Is Dead' painted in big red letters on a park fence".
