Aston Villa striker Ross McCormack came up with quite possible the lamest excuse for skipping training in the history of the sport.
The Scotland striker, who had already reportedly called in sick at least two times already this season, missed some training this week because the electronic gates at his house weren’t working.
Bruce has stood by McCormack this season despite being unimpressed with his fitness levels (even the fans have noticed that he has piled on the pounds since his joined Villa), but he was understandably very annoyed at his recent lame and bizarre excuse.
He told McCormack to just jump over the fence and get a taxi to training, but McCormack told him that the gate was being fixed and that he’d try his best to make it to Bodymoor Heath for training.
However, Bruce was not prepared to accept this feeble response, so he drove to the striker’s house, jumped over a small fence and confronted the player on his front doorstep. He even supposedly took pictures of the gate to prove that the player could have left his house had he wanted to.
As a result of his absence from training, Bruce rightfully left him out of the match day squad to face Preston on Saturday afternoon, and he was in no mood to let the striker off easily after the final whistle.
When asked about McCormack’s absence, Bruce blasted:
“In my opinion, he’s not fit to play unless his attitude and record of missing training improves. If he keeps missing training like he does – then that will be the situation. He has just not turned up. The latest excuse was that his gates had stuck but he couldn’t jump over a fence that was four feet six inches high. There has been too much indiscipline at this club for way too long. Not in 20 years of management have I gone down this road of publicly shaming a player but I have to make a stand because I won’t put up with it. Not on my watch. How can I pick him when he doesn’t want to come training? It’s happened more than once. Everyone can have an excuse for one occasion but when it is more than that I will not accept it.”
This poor excuse will not have gone down well with the Villa faithful and he can probably expect a roasting the next time he makes an appearance in a Villa shirt (whenever that may be). In fact, it might be best for him if he comes up with another excuse as to why he can’t play. Given his latest excuse, it’ll probably be something along the lines of “Sorry Gaffer, but I can’t make it to the match today as the dog ate my boots.”
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