Ayoze Perez opens up about the mood in the dressing room following Lascelles & Diame’s bust up

Ayoze Perez has played down suggestions that the club are in ‘crisis’ following a training ground fight between Jamaal Lascelles and Mo Diame, claiming that this is something that happens at ‘every English team’ and has not affected the ‘great spirit’ that remains in the dressing room.

It was confirmed over the weekend that Lascelles – who’s just been handed a new six year deal – was repeatedly calling Diame ‘lazy’ in training on Thursday, seeing them begin trading blows after words were exchanged.

Jonjo Shelvey suffered a fractured hand in an attempt to split the pair up, with the altercation causing some of the national papers to rather desperately suggest that we were in ‘crisis’ following the bust up.

Whilst we were never likely to believe that, Ayoze Perez has spoken out about the atmosphere in the dressing room following Thursday’s fight, playing down any suggestions that it’s impacted on our team spirit.

Perez said:

“I’m not going to comment anything about that. It is something that happens with every English team.

“We have a great dressing room, a great spirit and that is nothing important. We are not going to comment on that.

“We have a lot of desire to improve so it is nothing important for us.”

As Ayoze alludes to, these things do happen in football and quite possibly occur more regularly than we realise – not that you’d encourage acts of violence on the training ground.

It’s good nonetheless to hear that this has not had any real impact on the ‘great spirit’ that exists in the dressing room – something that has been a driving force behind this team under Rafa Benitez since he took over.

(Fancy writing for us? Send any articles/ideas over to us at [email protected] & we’ll get back to you!)

About Olly Hawkins

As a Junior Magpie since birth and season ticket holder, I eat, sleep and breathe all things NUFC! Here at the blog, I aim to bring you news, views, match reports and transfer exclusives as and when I get them.

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