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#INSERT type:image caption:Puel took Nice to fourth in 2012-13, but they have struggled since. END# Around 70 supporters of Nice invaded the pitch at a training session and exchanged blows with players and staff amid growing tension at the Ligue 1 club, according to reports. Claude Puel's side were thrashed 5-0 at Saint Etienne last weekend, their third defeat in a run of four matches without a win. With two games left and a five-point cushion over the bottom three, Nice are unlikely to be relegated. But dissatisfied fans vented their fury at a training session after a call on Twitter by the Populaire Sud supporters' group. It was reported that the incident saw some of the fans attack 53-year-old Puel and goalkeeper Mouez Hassen, who was attempting to help the coach. Flares were also thrown, and defender Kevin Gomis tried to talk to fans as he left the training ground but was said to have been forced to take refuge in his car when a flare was hurled at him. "We work in a particular environment," L'Equipe quoted Puel as saying. "I think no club in France has had to confront all the twists and turns we have had to this season." Since Puel guided the club to a surprise fourth-placed finish in 2012-13, fortunes have slipped and they only narrowly avoided relegation last season. "It's understandable that our fans show their unhappiness. When you love this club, and we all love it, we absolutely cannot be happy with the current situation," Nice president Jean-Pierre Rivere said in a statement on the club's official website. "We have already said we will draw conclusions on all of this at the end of the season. "Having said that, we cannot sanction the dangerous escalation that we have observed over the last few months around the club, nor that the technical staff and our players be put in physical danger."
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