Aston Villa manager Remi Garde denied rumours of a dressing room rift at his troubled Premier League side on Friday.

Villa travel to Manchester City on Saturday propping up the table, eight points from safety.

And Garde used his pre-match press conference to knock down reports of discord amongst his players.

The Frenchman said skipper Micah Richards came and spoke to him after Tuesday's 3-1 defeat to Everton and assured him the players do not have issues with each other.

"I'm surprised this kind of stuff goes out because I strongly believe it is not the case simply because I had the captain of the team, Micah, in my office after the last game," he said.

"We had a private chat. I don't want to say exactly what was talked about but to sum it up it was the exact opposite of what you're saying.

"It's strange that it came out now. Four or five weeks ago nobody was talking about that.

"All of a sudden, when you lose a game in football everything is strange. To be fair, I don't know exactly what has been coming out or what people are reading or listening.

"But some of the stuff that has been reported is completely wrong. Once again this is football, when you lose games you have to deal with problems that don't even exist."