Inside Aston Villa's private Instagram account as Steven Gerrard takes Pep Guardiola inspiration

Steven Gerrard firmly believes the small margins can accelerate Aston Villa's assault on the Premier League's top seven, from banning fizzy drinks to cracking down on ketchup, the use of a private Instagram account is too bearing fruit.

The account 'bodymoor1' is followed by 35 people - including all members of the Gerrard's squad - and already has nearly 100 posts after it was created four-and-a-half months ago when the Liverpool legend and his backroom team succeeded Dean Smith during the November international break.

It is a method used to boost engagement and communication amongst the Villa dressing room, so players can have 'no excuses', such is the culture embedded at Bodymoor Heath following Gerrard's arrival. He set up a private social media account while he was at Rangers and it might well have helped the club win a first top-flight Scottish title in 10 years, as they went undefeated all season.

And Gerrard hopes the use of a private Instagram account will have a similar effect on the Villa squad. Gerrard explained: "We want to get as much information into the players as we can, we don’t want them stuck in a classroom for a long time.

"We want to try and be creative, we also don’t want to just give them information you and I both know they will forget, it’s [Instagram account] basically used to put reminders on. If we have a team meeting for example, we can remind them of what happened in the team meeting, what was said, reminders of key information.

"It’s just another way of communicating to the players. When the leave this building they obviously have families and other things to take their mind off what has happened at work, so it’s just a way of reminding them of the good stuff we do. We joined at a