Villa manager Martin O’Neill has shrugged off rumours of discontent in his dressing room by insisting – “I’m not here to make players happy.”

O’Neill is shaping his team for tonight’s Europa League qualifying tie against Rapid Vienna, having stifled the grumbling around Villa Park with Monday’s dramatic 3-1 win over Liverpool at Anfield.

There have been whispers of friction between the manager and a cluster of first team players including Nigel Reo-Coker, Steve Sidwell – both left out of the first game of the season – Luke Young and John Carew.

The manager dismissed the talk as mischievous chatter, but is in no mood to have his authority questioned at the start of his fourth season in charge.

He said: “I’m not here to make players happy. Players will be happy when they are in the team and playing well. My job is to try and win games and to try to get the side playing cohesively to give ourselves a better chance.”

O’Neill rounded on claims of a bust up with Luke Young as a “lie” and gave the same response when he was asked about supposed tensions with Carew, who could play his first game of the season tonight.

He added: “Is the crisis over? No, there is a crisis every single week. In this game you just go from crisis to crisis. It was nice to win the Liverpool match. But that’s all we’ve done so far.”

Villa go into tonight’s game trailing the Austrians 1-0 from the first leg.

And O’Neill has much on his plate, with talks on-going with Blackburn’s £4million-rated defender Stephen Warnock while he maintains interest in Portsmouth defender Sylvain Distin and Manchester City’s Richard Dunne.

Reports this morning suggested Villa had agreed a £6million fee for Ireland international Dunne, while Distin remains a target, despite competition from Everton for the Frenchman who Pompey value at around £4million.