Robert Snodgrass reveals the secret to his consistency at Aston Villa

The on-loan West Ham winger has been one of the club’s standout performers, topping the division’s assist charts and scoring seven goals. Snodgrass has started 37 consecutive league fixtures since making his full debut against Middlesbrough in September.

The 30-year-old Scot is one of several Villa players who regularly take part in regular yoga sessions at the club’s Bodymoor Heath training ground and reckons that – along with an already focused fitness regime – has helped him cope with the division’s often punishing demands.

“The older you get the more you focus on doing every detail right – eating right, sleeping right, resting, stretching, now it’s yoga!” he said. “If you’d have told me at 16 I’d be turning up for yoga classes when I was 30 I’d have thought you were mental.

“But in the last 10 years I’ve had to embrace these disciplines and include them in my life. But I believe in it because it’s brought me success.”

He added: “I get nervous and excited before every game. If you don’t get that feeling you’re not normal in my opinion. It doesn’t matter who you are you should be a bit anxious about what’s going to happen in every game and how it will go.

“I’m not superstitious; it’s just habit and routine. The family help too, it’s a team effort, especially when you have kids and they’re growing older. But when it comes to football you have to be ‘in the room,’ as they say, focussing on the game and nothing else.

“You need to aim to have the perfect mentality for 90 minutes.

“Nerves get to people in different ways. Some players throw up before games, others have superstitions. I like to prepare myself mentally and physically, it’s all about what you believe brings you success.”

Snodgrass is targeting a second promotion to the Premier League, after winning through the play-offs with Hull two years ago.

Villa will likely have to take the same path, despite heading to Ipswich tomorrow with their automatic promotion hopes still just about alive.

Steve Bruce’s men, who are already guaranteed a place in the play-offs, sit four points behind second-placed Cardiff with three games to play.

“There are a few comparisons between that season at Hull and Aston Villa this season,” he said. “I arrived at Villa a few games into the season and we were 18th in the league.

“So to me to be guaranteed the play-offs at least is a big achievement.

“I’ve been involved in 21 goals, 14 assists, so it’s been one of my better seasons on that front – in terms of goals and assists. When you’re a winger that’s what you’re judged on.”