Setting aside the fact that having a newborn son who's a few weeks old is a perfectly acceptable reason to want to commute in - given most people would be on paternity leave (I don't care if he's a footballer, there's people who take home millions a year who still take paternity leave) - do you think the rest of the squad are going to think it's reasonable, or just dick-swinging from a manager who has done precisely nothing to earn the trust or respect of the players? Fergie could do these things because he was successful and the players respected him. Do you think anyone in that squad respects RVN? Seems his style of management is just a load of waffle and falling out with senior players, which he did in the Netherlands too.
I mean talk about shooting yourself in the foot - you target a senior and influential player in the squad, you tell him you don't care if he's just had a baby, he needs to stay over one night a week at the training ground (why this makes any difference, who knows - I'll be kind and assume he has at least a half decent case for it). The player doesn't want to, and you publicly fall out with him. Is that going to make the players more or less likely to respect you? The phrase 'pick your battles' comes to mind - this, and the row about Okoli's boots? The bloke is a weirdo, I bet the players take the piss out of him behind his back.
None of it matters because there's not a chance we stay up, but this should be the time when we are creating togetherness and a siege mentality, lead by the manager - I don't really care if they deserve it, do you think hanging your players out to dry publicly is going to do that? The best you can say about him is that he's just trying to stamp his authority on the team and it's not working - I think it's more likely he can see the writing is on the wall and he's just getting his excuses in publicly now so that he can just throw the players under the bus when he's trying to pull the wool over some owner's eyes at the next club he interviews with.