Aston Villa manager launched 'how dare you f***ing question me' rant at James Milner

Former Aston Villa manager Martin O'Neill once exploded at James Milner after he dared to challenge his approach to training.

Tacticians often have different philosophies when it comes to delegating responsibilities among the squad, and Champions League-winner Milner learned the hard way how to upset one of his former bosses. The three-time Premier League champion was nearing the end of his career at Aston Villa when he took issue with one aspect of O'Neill's management style.

Specifically, he believed the squad wasn't doing enough to maintain fitness levels comparable to their rivals. Stephen Warnock, who joined Villa from Blackburn in 2009, was astonished at the club's success given the lack of attention paid to conditioning.

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He recalled during an appearance on Undr the Cosh: "Gabby [Agbonlahor] went to Vegas twice and New York [once] in that year - [during] the season, because they had so much time off." When asked if this led to the team falling behind their competitors in terms of fitness, the former full-back responded: "Yeah!

"We blew up in April. There was a team meeting around March time, and it was led by James Milner, who basically said, 'We're not fit enough. We need to do more.' And O'Neill took the knock massively.

"It was like, 'How dare you f***ing question me?' He was fuming. Milly [Milner] was super fit. He'd do the running machine after training, would do his runs on his own and things, but he knew as a whole, as a team, we weren't fit enough. And we weren't."

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Warnock continued by detailing how the 2009/10 season ended with Villa running out of steam around April as they finished in sixth place after being fourth at Christmas, admitting he and his teammates were "f****d, because we hadn't trained properly." He contrasted the experience with his time at Blackburn, which he described as "ultra professional", to what he found at Villa, where the fitness coach wouldn't even lead warm-ups because he "didn't wanna do it".

The saga marked the beginning of the end for both Milner and O'Neill at Villa Park. Milner, who later played for Liverpool and is currently with Brighton, was snapped up by Manchester City in a £26million deal, where he became one of their key players. Meanwhile, O'Neill's tenure in Birmingham concluded when he stepped down abruptly after four years.

Warnock himself stayed on at Villa until 2013 before transferring to Leeds. It's likely he never encountered another manager as sensitive to criticism over fitness as O'Neill during his subsequent career.

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