First post so bare with me.
A lad I work with is a coach of a couple of the city youth teams, and last week myself him, and a former villa European cup winner (who's son I teach "withe") had a chat which left me smiling so thought would share with fellow fans.
By all accounts from the papers a number of senior players over there have been refusing to train, think dunne etc from earlier in the year. said former player allegedly says last week that while watching a training session, a number of the 'younger' players refused to train. He told me that during a warm up session led by coaches,, a lad on loan, with backing of others, picked up the cones, lobbed them and told him to stick his training session. This was followed by balls being smashed at each other, reminiscent of a playground. He then watched as coaches, including one of our former players went round collecting a mess of balls and cones. Coach then carried on to laugh it off saying it's just banter. Needless to say, mr villa cup winner was less than impressed both then and when telling to me.........I just stood there and had a big, big smile on my face.....
The villa in a shambles.....priceless
Sorry bud. Last weds (work in school,so half term) or something was when told, about the week or so before. By all accounts it happened more then once.
It makes you wonder what happens at clubs, like ours when the players have 'enough' of the management, such as under aidy this year?!?!?
This sort of thing goes on all the time. You can go back to Brian Clough at Leeds. They players just DIDN'T want him as their manager. He lasted just over a month!
I think the Villa players were used to O'Neill's lax training schedule so anyone who actually wanted them to work hard wasn't going to be popular. Richard Dunne, James Collins and Stephen Ireland have apparently been the most resistant to the more intense training. Ireland actually still lives in Manchester because he doesn't want to leave despite all the time it will save getting to and from training, similar thing with Pires as well