‘Happy workers are harder workers’ – we’ve all heard the old adage, right?

Well, not on Remi Garde’s watch!

Former Aston Villa star Gabby Agbonlahor has told talkSPORT his former manager was such a drill sergeant that he once told off future captain Jack Grealish for smiling at the training ground.

Getty Images - Getty 3 “Jack walked down the corridor and Garde said to him: ‘Why are you laughing so much? Why are you so happy?’

Agbonlahor joined White and Sawyer in the studio on Thursday to look back on his 13-year career at Villa Park.

And asked about his NINE former managers, he said Frenchman Garde was by far the worst.

Garde arrived at Villa Park in 2015 as a replacement for Tim Sherwood, and came with pedigree. In his previous job with Lyon, he steered the Ligue 1 club to victory in both the Coupe de France and Trophee des Champions.

However, it didn’t work out for him in the Premier League as his strict regime and lack of interaction with the team meant he lasted just five months. Hired in the November, Garde was axed in March with Villa still rock-bottom of the table. The club was later relegated.

And according to Agbonlahor, the coach was so unbearable that ‘even the French players couldn’t stand him’.

“Remi Garde was the worst manager I ever played under,” said the former winger. “He is up there at the top on his own.

“And it’s not just me, if you asked any player in the whole squad they’d say exactly the same.

getty 3 Remi Garde’s reign at Aston Villa was not fulled with joy – he only won three of his 23 games in charge of the club

“When he came in he was arrogant in a bad way, where even in training he would be watching on the side with his arms folded, shaking his head, sulking, throwing his arms up.

“The older players in the squad would be thinking, ‘come over and tell the players what they’re not doing right’, but he just held it inside. He didn’t say anything.

“He never got involved in the sessions, either. Even on game days he’d just sit in the dugout and not ever come out and say if something was going wrong. He’d just be shaking his head thinking, ‘they’re all rubbish’.

“He wanted it to be like an army base. You weren’t allowed to laugh or smile!

“I remember one day Jack told me: ‘Remi Garde has just told me off for smiling’.

“I was like… ‘y’what?!’

“Jack walked down the corridor and he said to him: ‘Why are you laughing so much? Why are you so happy?’

AFP - Getty 3 Remi Garde infamously dropped Jack Grealish from his squad after discovering the youngster went out partying after a 4-0 defeat to Everton

“How can you tell someone not to smile at work? You want players to be happy when they’re playing football.

“And he was serious, he wasn’t joking. It was incredible!”

Did Garde never smile, then?

“No,” Agbonlahor added.

“Eventually it got to the stage where he was waiting to be sacked. He was waiting for his pay-off. He didn’t want to resign and lose his money, he was waiting for the pay-off.

“And you’d think maybe the French players would have liked him, but they couldn’t stand him either, or his assistant.

“He was wrong fit from the very beginning.”

Listen to the full story from Gabby Agbonlahor on talkSPORT above