Former Portsmouth defender Carl Dickinson reveals he threatened to injure team-mates to end Watford contract dispute

Dickinson has told how he was pushed to issue the warning to Watford when he was left in the cold at Vicarage Road in 2013.

The left-back moved to the Hornets after a loan stay at Pompey, when he was brought to the club by Steve Cotterill in 2011.

But it later turned ugly there - leading to Dickinson taking some radical action to get his career up and running again.

He told UndrTheCosh podcast: ‘I said I come in everyday and I’ve never kicked off - you’ve got to let me go.

‘They said okay, we’ll give you 50 per cent (of a year’s money).

‘I was like f****** hang on a second, I’ve done nothing wrong and I’ve never kicked off and they said, well this is how it is.

‘So I said well this is what this is: I’m going to go out there and f****** injure all of your new lads.

‘I’ve never done anything like that and never wanted to be like that, but I’d got to the point where they’d done that much to me.

‘I’d never done anything wrong. I’d come in and trained my arse off every day.

‘So I said I’m going to go out there and all your new lads are going to get injured - two days later I was gone!’

Dickinson explained it was former Watford boss Gianfranco Zola and executive staff working under Italian owners the Pozzo family, who he issued his stark warning to.

The 33-year-old admitted he regretted being forced to take such evasive action.

He added: ‘So I’m saying this to Zola and a bloke who was above Zola but underneath the owners.

‘There was that many people around the place you didn’t know who was doing what.

‘He (Zola) was just like Caarrll, Caarrll (gesturing with hands to calm down).

‘I was like no, I’ve never had to kick off with anyone and I never wanted to up to the point where I’m doing stuff.

‘But you’re treating me like that - so I’m kicking off.

‘I made the point I will go out there, train and try to injure as many people as I can that are your big players. That was it.

‘I do regret it in terms of saying I’m going to injure lads because it wasn’t their thing and I could’ve ended up hurting a lad.

‘I was never going to do it, but it was a threat to say to them.’

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