Stiliyan Petrov has played down last week's training ground spat between Martin O'Neill and Nigel Reo-Coker.
Midfielder keen to draw a line under incident
Aston Villa captain Stiliyan Petrov has played down last week's training ground spat between Martin O'Neill and Nigel Reo-Coker.
The pair had to separated following a disagreement on Thursday, with O'Neill underlining who the boss is at Villa Park by dropping Reo-Coker at the weekend.
Villa were comfortable winners in his absence as they saw off Portsmouth 2-0 and Reo-Coker is expected to return to training this week.
O'Neill has said he has drawn a line under the incident and Petrov has now called for everyone else to do likewise.
"Things like that happen in football. Everyone in the team is a fighter," he told the
Express and Star.
"It happens everywhere in the world. There are 25 people with different characters and sometimes you get clashes like that, but you just keep going.
"The manager knows what he did, Nigel knows what he did. They are grown men. They will straighten things out and then Nigel will be back in the team.
"Nigel is a winner. Things like that happen. We are happy we have players like that. We have players who want to speak, want to fight and want to be a winner, so that is a good thing.
"These things happen."
Sentiments echoed
Steve Sidwell echoed Petrov's sentiments as he added: "Were we affected? Not at all. These games are too important to let things affect you.
"We've put it aside, got our heads down and worked hard. Whatever happens on that front will be dealt with in house I'm sure.
"You know at every club that there is one gaffer. That's no different here, especially with Martin. He's such a strong character.
"I've seen it happen on training grounds so many times. Things boil over and that's it - it's just one of those things.
"At the end of the day we're a strong family and that's all that matters. Of course, it's normally between players but that just goes to show there's a lot of passion.
"You can see how the gaffer is on the sidelines. He is no different in training. It's the same with Nigel, he is a very passionate person.
"I'm sure it's going to get forgotten, put to bed. I'm sure they'll have a sit down and have a chat about it.
"I've been involved in these kind of things many times in training. Tempers go, but normally as players you shake hands and that's it."
