Club discipline has been high on the agenda at Manchester City this week.

Much of it has centred on our Republic of Ireland international Richard Dunne who was dropped from the side for the 4-3 defeat against Coventry in midweek after missing a training session.

Richard was one of the players that was part of the drinking culture that became well publicised at City last season.

Last year he was fined half a week's wages or a week's wages on several occasions for going out and coming in late. Sometimes we were actually finishing training when he would come jogging out onto the pitch!

As people know a week's wages to a footballer is a lot of money.

But in the football world it is a major crime to be late for anything.

If you walk into a meeting one minute after it has started everyone sits there and claps as if to say 'Thanks for coming'. It got to a point where Richard was disrespecting our former manager Joe Royle. But I think our new boss Kevin Keegan has been well informed about previous goings on and that showed last week.

It all happened when we were due to come in the morning after a game that we had won. It is known as a loosener, a session where you stretch your legs so you are not stiff for the following game.

Richard didn't show up for that, so when we were given the next day off Richard was told he had to come in and do something then. But they couldn't get hold of him and so he effectively had two days off.

Officials at the club were not happy and the gaffer fined him and dropped him from the squad for not returning his calls.

I totally agree with that because it is the only way that he would actually sit up and pay attention. Everything else had been tried and it hadn't worked.

I think Keegan solved the problem by saying 'OK I will drop you'.

You see Richard plays for the Irish national team and that will affect his standing in the national set-up with the team likely to go to the World Cup.

I think the message got over to him because he actually came to me and said 'How should I apologise to the gaffer'. He was asking me for my advice.

I said to him say: 'Gaffer, I am a young player. I have made mistakes in the past, I am sure you have heard about them. I am asking you to give me one more chance to put it right'.

I then said to him in saying that you cannot mess up anymore because what you are saying is if I do then you are right to leave me out of the squad for the rest of the year.

While I was saying this I was also thinking from my point of view that he is an important player and I wouldn't like for him to be fit and out of the squad. He could be the difference between us being in the Premiership or not.

Afterwards I thought 'why was he asking me for advice?' because I still think of myself as a young lad. I was forgetting he is like 22 or 23-years-old.

I guess players like Richard come to me because they see how I handle myself on and off the field and think 'if Shaun was in this situation I am sure he would know what to do for the best'.

That said, I don't think I would find myself in Richard's shoes.

There is never a day that I don't feel like going in for training.

I am doing what I love to do. If I felt like that I would just remind myself of when I was in Bermuda and dreamed of being a professional player and that would be motivation enough, not only for that day but for the next month or two.

On a lighter note, I was glad that we bounced back from the Coventry defeat in the best possible way by beating Sheffield Wednesday 6-2 on their own ground.

We conceded an early goal in both halves, but that was the only downside to the match.

If you come up against quality teams, no matter what division you are in, you are giving yourself a mountain to climb if you give away early goals.

It was just fortunate that Sheffield Wednesday at this moment in time, with all due respect, are not like Arsenal. We were able to come back whereas in the Premiership we might have lost the game 1-0 or 3-1.

I scored another two and I was pleased with that because people are saying 'when are you going to have a little spell when you don't'.

Our new signing Ali Bernabia has been a revelation and he is helping me to score the number of goals that I am.

I needed a player like him when I was 23! If I played with him then I think my career would have been slightly different.

He is some player.

I have never played with anyone that has the vision and precision in his passing that he has. Sometimes I don't even see him but yet the ball appears at my feet!

He is unbelievable and while I don't want to boost his ego too much I would really like to see a player like him in the Premiership.

We have another game tonight this time against Walsall and although on paper it should be one of our easier games things don't always work out like that.

We went to West Brom earlier this season and and I thought 'If you want to get promoted you have got to beat teams like them'.

That was not being disrespectful because they are a decent team but they are never in the top six at the end of the season.

But my thoughts beforehand went right out of the window because they beat us 4-0!

There are no easy games. It's about your team at the end of the day and how much you want it.

Finally, I was really pleased to see my close friend Kyle Lightbourne score his first goal for Macclesfield last week.

Kyle will score goals but he has reminded me of just how difficult it is in that division no matter how good a goalscorer you are. You need players around you to be on your wavelength.

That goal couldn't have come at a better time because I think it will remind him of just what it is like to score regularly and it could kick start his season.