Tweets that footballers have subsequently regretted

Burnley striker Andre Gray was outed as a bit of an arse this weekend, when a series of vile homophobic tweets from 2012 surfaced.

And though Gray has since asked for forgiveness, claiming he's not the same man he was four years ago, it's not the first time Twitter has landed a footballer into trouble.

Here's a list of players who clearly typed before they thought.

Joleon Lescott

Your team are guaranteed relegation and have been god-awful to watch all season, the fans are rightfully annoyed; do you a) keep a low profile or b) tweet a picture of your flash car and then claim it was an accident? Oh, Joleon. 

John Ruddy

Ruddy chose the wrong time to show the world his 'funny' side, with this sick tweet. The keeper blamed a hacker, but Twitter was having none of it. 

Wojciech Szczesny

Arsenal keeper Szczesny's joke-spat with Aaron Ramsey went a tad too far when he accused Ramsey of looking like a rapist. The Pole proved that he isn't a safe pair of hands on, or off the pitch. 

Wayne Rooney

Wayne famously had a go at being a keyboard warrior back in 2011, but tragically tagged himself, rather than his mysterious nemesis. Amateur. 

Joey Barton

No one really cared about Joey's choice of Old Firm team back in 2011. Fast forward to 2016 and the motor-mouthed midfielder has since signed for Rangers. Yikes

Sebastien Bassong

A classic case of too much information from the canary. No one needs to know about your bowel movements, even if they are clean.

Cristiano Ronaldo

The 3-time Ballon D'or winner will need to word his tweets better in the future and maybe rethink his competition titles. 

Christian Benteke

Benteke celebrated his recent record move to Crystal Palace by taking to Twitter and thanking Burnley ... The Belgian quickly realised his mistake and blamed it on his Tweet manager. Where can I get a Tweet manager?

Rio Ferdinand

Back when we were all finding out that John Terry was a bit racist, Rio took exception to Ashley Cole taking the Chelsea captains side. The former Man United centre back decided to counter racism with, er, racism. 

Joey Barton (again)

Joey isn't very good at staying out of trouble is he? This time he took exception to criticism from Thiago Silva by claiming that the Brazilian was a transexual. Needless to say the hashtag #thiagosaladyboy never caught on

Barry Bannan

Not only did Barry Bannan attend the cinema by himself to watch 50 shades of grey, he tweeted about it and let the whole world know about it. The Scotland international quickly felt the rough hand of Twitter justice and rightly so. 50 Shades of Grey, in a Bolton cinema, what is he thinking?

Joey Barton (AGAIN)

Joey insulted the whole of Burnley and then signed for them. That's Rangers and Burnley who have had to put up with a classic Barton-Twitter-U-turn now.

Steven Taylor

Oh dear. Steven Taylor proved that he had worse patter than your Da, back in 2013 with this blatantly racist tweet. 

Crystal Palace

Not a player, we know, but Palace proved to us all that the copy and paste job is a risk not worth taking. Perhaps Benteke's tweet earlier proved that the two are a match made in Heaven?

Anthony Stokes

The Celtic player was tired of wasting away on the bench, so took to Twitter and let his club know it. Funnily enough the player managed to engineer a loan move away and became a legend with Edinburgh club Hibernian, scoring two goals in the Scottish Cup final. 

Ryan Tunnicliffe

Fulham player Ryan Tunnicliffe took to Twitter to voice his dislike for Patrick Bamford in rather unwitty fashion and was duly punished by the Twitter community and the FA, handing him a one-match ban. Should have been more.

James McClean

Twitter isn't normally the best place for charged speech on politics - especially if you're a footballer - but that didn't stop West Brom player James McClean. The striker thought he'd attempt to calm everyone's Brexit fears by proposing a reunified Ireland. 

And finally, another homophobic idiot, Chris Stokes

Coventry player Stokes used the derogatory term and then claimed he didn't know what it meant. Well he won't be using it again.