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Glen Johnson has been appearing more regularly as a pundit since officially hanging up his boots - but up until now, most presenters and hosts have been happy to talk mostly about his days at Chelsea, Liverpool or England.

But on Friday night, Jermaine Jenas opened a can of worms when he asked the former right-back for an insight into the Stoke City changing room last season.

For the next big chunk of Radio 5Live's Friday Night Social Johnson laid bare what he saw going on behind the scenes as the club hurtled towards relegation from the Premier League.

He suggested there was a group of 'eight good pros' who were outnumbered by 'average players who thought they were superstars'... and Mark Hughes and his coaching staff could not handle the situation.

His recollections include background on £18.3m record signing Giannelli Imbula, who was signed on a long-term contract from Porto in 2016 but has fallen so far out of favour he has spent the last two years on loan in France and Spain.

It left Johnson - who was battling injury at the start of the campaign - hating football and deciding to retire.

Here is the Stoke section of his interview in full.

What was Stoke changing room like in the relegation season? Could you foresee problems?

One hundred per cent. We called it in pre-season, it was that bad.

But you know what it’s like, every dressing room has got X, Y, Zs who think they are superstars or whatever.

We had a core of about eight lads that were genuine good lads who would put things straight and police everything as every club had. We got rid of two or three and didn’t replace them with anyone – good lads, like Whelo (Glenn Whelan) who would run through brick walls for the team.

They took it away from the genuine lads to try to sign superstars and got it horribly wrong. Then you had players who didn’t want to be at training, walking off the pitch, kicking balls about.

I’ve seen stuff that I hadn’t seen before in my life.

Giannelli Imbula subbed himself because someone didn’t pass him the ball. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was in a pre-season game and in training, I swear to you. Record signing. Like £20m or something?

He’s on the edge of the box or whatever, Charlie (Adam) has burst through and didn’t cut the ball back so he’s waved his arms in the air with his gloves on then he starts walking towards the bench.

He’s got a long way to come so we just think he’s casually walking about, we’re not really looking at him but next thing he’s on the touchline and not saying anything. Then we’re looking at him thinking, he’s walking fine but he must be injured or something.

Then he’s swearing in French on the bench, throwing things around, but still no one knows what’s going on. Then obviously someone gets stripped off and comes on.

But then 10 minutes later he decides he wants to play again. This is where it’s a disgrace. He came back on and they took the kid off again.

If you’re the manager are you going to let that happen? Put it this way, he’s not coming off in the first place – or if he does, you’re not seeing him again.

That sums it up. He subbed himself, then subbed himself back on. And nobody said anything to him, just subbed the poor kid who had been on for 10 minutes. I was half laughing, crying my eyes out because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

Did the players feel unable to hold that together? What can the manager do?

It was madness. It was letting some people get away with murder.

It wasn’t just one rule for the club, it was all up and down. It was a right mess.

(Image: Phil Radcliffe)

How frustrating was it going into that season… knowing this train was only going to go one way?

It’s frustrating because we know as players we can’t control other people’s actions.

Ultimately you see stuff go on in training and you’re looking at the staff but no one is saying anything.

Everyone is losing their head then the training sessions goes down the pan.

As players you have to have a certain element of respect otherwise there is going to be a punch up every day.

So rather than saying to G (Imbula), people are having a word with the manager, saying, ‘Did you not see this?’ We’re not saying it as calmly as that by the way. We’re saying, ‘Is no one going to say anything?’ But no one would say anything and they’d roll their eyes.

(Image: Stanley Chou/Getty Images)

And then it got even worse. When he was doing stuff they would turn their back so they didn’t see it, so they could avoid confrontation.

That rubs the eight lads that I was talking about who hold the ship together up the wrong way. They couldn’t believe it. When something goes wrong against them, the manager and staff would say something… and then they’d react completely different, thinking, ‘Have you not seen what’s going on in the last three months and you’re going to pull me up for this?’

It was strange.

Did it not all come to a head at some point?

That group of the good lads who I keep referring to, we were totally outnumbered.

The superstars, as they’d want to be called, as soon as we had a bad couple of results, they weren’t thinking about how we could get the squad back together, they were thinking, ‘I’m going to leave in January anyway.’

They were literally telling the team where they were going. We all know it’s rubbish but they think they’re superstars and live in cloud cuckoo land.

Did it play a part in you wanting to retire?

It did that – and made me hate football.

You are watching these players and they are bang average but think they are superstars.

It is what is. I’ve loved every other day of my career apart from those six months.

(Image: Sentinel)

What was Xherdan Shaqiri like during these moments?

He wasn’t one of the lads who would hold the ship down.

When things were going well for us he would be a big player for us and perform. When things aren’t going well, he’d be hit and miss.

But that’s obvious, everyone can see that. It’s not anything new. Everyone could see it in games and performances.

Jurgen (Klopp) would deal with it (if he had a strop) and put him to bed. He wouldn’t put up with it.

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