The 28-year-old Newcastle midfielder penned a four-year deal with Rangers on Friday and is available for this weekend's Premier League clash at Wigan. Barton was a popular figure in the stands on Tyneside but fell out with the upper echelons of the club's hierarchy, recently receiving a fine of two weeks' wages after criticising the club's transfer policy via his Twitter account. As a result Barton was made available for a free transfer and has now joined QPR, whose ambition he claims led him to join the club. "That is the reason I have come here," he told QPR Player. "If I didn't feel the club had ambition it would sort of defeat the point of me coming here in the first place. "The fact they are able to go out and sign players who they are talking about at the minute - as well as myself - shows they are serious about taking this football club where they need to take it." Asked why he chose the club over other interested parties, he added: "Just the ambition. "Obviously they've already got a great bunch of lads here already to have achieved what they achieved last season (promotion) and the results in the early part of this season. "[The team can get even better] if they can add one of two bodies to that, which they are talking about. "As I say, I think there is potential at the football club, especially with the location of where it is. "You know the ambitions of the new owners and the people that are already here from previous times bodes well for the future." Barton becomes the first signing at QPR since AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes completed his takeover of the club last week. Rangers boss Neil Warnock has since had little time to make his mark on the transfer market, but reportedly has the likes of Manchester City winger Shaun Wright-Phillips and Aston Villa full-back Luke Young in his sights. Barton's agent Willie McKay admitted that Warnock has been interested in the midfielder since the club's promotion from the npower Championship, and the Liverpool-born player concedes it made an impact in his decision. "Obviously any time a manager makes a massive play at you it is massively complimentary and it does help sway your decision," Barton said. "It is nice to feel wanted. He is obviously a certain type of character but that is what the games needs more of: characters. "I feel we will work quite well together." He added of his new, often-outspoken manager: "I don't know him all that well at the minute, but I tend not to believe what is written about people in the paper from my own circumstances. "I tend to treat people as I find them and up to this point he has been straight down the line, very honest and very forthright in his opinions, which I don't mind at all. I quite embrace that fact." Barton will wear the number 17 jersey at the Hoops and could make his full debut at the DW Stadium tomorrow. After a two-week international break, Newcastle are the next opponents and he knows it will be difficult to face his former club. "There is an important game at Wigan first and foremost then we will start concentrating on the Newcastle game after that," he said. "It will be strange. I have still got a lot of friends at the football club and spent four and a half happy years there. "It will be difficult but that is football. "Ships in the night, that is the philosophy we live by and that is a prime example of it."
