Aston Villa manager Alex McLeish has challenged midfielder Stephen Ireland to start producing his best form on the pitch after his latest off-field headlines.
Ireland's girlfriend, Jessica Lawlor, posted a picture of the midfielder on the internet apparently puffing on a hookah pipe, with the caption "shisha, alcohol and Xmas songs - doesn't get better than this". But it is in a Villa shirt that McLeish is hoping Ireland can finally make an impact 18 months after move from Manchester City.
"It is not something I want to be discussing in the newspapers. Was it a shisha pipe or something? I don't know what is in that stuff. For all I know he could have been blowing bubbles into it or something.
"It is not my world, the way the players live nowadays, with the tweeting and posting pictures of themselves and that. Any opinion I have on that will be delivered to Stephen rather than discussing it in the newspapers. You don't want to be bringing attention to yourself."
When asked about Ireland's prospects at Villa, McLeish said: "He has been training well and played really well in the first half of the Arsenal game.
"He's got to take that kind of attitude into other games. We know what he can do when he has got the ball. We know he has a got a decent touch.
"But he showed the other attributes in the Arsenal game with his closing down and harrying of people. He has to do more of that.
"We know that he has not really done himself total justice in a Villa shirt. There is still a chance for him, there is still a chance for everybody.
"I think every player will be wanting to play and the longer Stephen and others don't play, they will become unsettled. But there will be opportunities over the next two or three games for him to show us what he is really capable of."
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