Former Nottingham Forest captain Paul McKenna has admitted that Lewis McGugan was an ‘unbelievable talent’ but was let down by his lazy tendencies during his time under Billy Davies.
McKenna was speaking at length on the ‘Under the Cosh’ podcast and while he was very complimentary of some of his former team-mates, there were others who came in for criticism.
When talking about Davies’ strict weight-maintaining scheme, the 41-year-old singled out McGugan, who was notoriously known for not always fully exerting himself in matches.
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“Remember Lewis McGugan?” McKenna said. “An absolutely unbelievable talent, one of the best players you’ve ever seen. Left foot, right foot and an absolute sledgehammer shot, just so talented.
“But absolutely bone idle, lazy as anything, and he struggled with his weight all the time.”
There was one story in particular that McKenna told involving him and his ex team-mate who had found a way around Davies’ strict regime only for it to come back and bite them on their trip to West Ham in 2011.
The Scottish boss was extremely keen for his players to be in great shape during his time at the City Ground and that often involved them being forced to lose weight in order to do so and he picked out McKenna as one of those who needed to be lighter.
The captain at the time had noticed whilst weighing himself in training that leaning on the nearby weights would lower the reading on the scales and he was quick to pass that key information onto his team-mates.
McGugan found the trick just as useful as his skipper and used it for a few weeks before their visit to Upton Park in the FA Cup.
“I’d forgot all about it and we played West Ham away,” McKenna said. “Lewis was looking big and was struggling. Davies drags him off after about 50 minutes and Billy’s fuming with him.”
The Scottish boss then vented his frustration at McKenna, who was captain at the time, on the bus after the game claiming that he “needs to have a word” with McGugan.
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“[McGugan] had been altering his weight for a month,” McKenna said. “We went in on the Friday before we went West Ham and they had moved the whole gym around.”
“He got on [the scales] and he was about six kilos over!”
