Aston Villa manager Dean Smith has revealed that his players have been involved in “nose-to-nose” confrontations in training but that he is happy to let the competitive nature remain behind-the-scenes.
The Villans have launched themselves up the Championship table and into a guaranteed playoff spot with a hugely impressive run of consecutive wins.
However, Smith has admitted that success on the pitch has led to the competitiveness ramping up on the training ground, revealing his reaction is to let them face up to each other but reining them in if it gets too much.
Speaking to the Mirror, the Villa boss said: “The day before the last game I have got players going nose-to-nose. I am not going to get in the middle and catch one. I will leave that to them.
“They are quite competitive but they are also reasonable and know where the line is and they sort it out themselves. You can see the tempo in training going up and us having to put the reins on them to stop over-training at times.
“When you have that you know you have a real competitive nature. They are pushing each other. But it is the environment we have created because we want to see winners and losers on the training ground as well as in matches.”
Opinion
This is what you are going to get when you have a bunch of professional footballers riding the wave of success and looking to not only compete with their rivals on the pitch but with their counterparts wearing the same shirt in training. Everyone wants to prove to the manager that they are worthy of being included in the starting XI and that is going to lead to tempers boiling over every so often. It seems as though Smith is quite happy to let that competitive spirit run free behind the scenes and understandably so, for it is getting the best out of his players when it comes to match day. Obviously he does not want it to impact on their performances and if he feels as though someone is taking it too far, you know he will be having a word behind closed doors. It is better that they are fighting with each other on the training pitch than with the opposition in their Championship clashes.