Friedel & Petrov Say Villa MUST Bounce Back

Villa keeper Brad Friedel has told the Birmingham Mail that Villa won't repeat the performance - or lack of - at Stamford Bridge. The former Blackburn Rovers legend said:

'They really stamped their authority on the game.' Admitting Chelsea played well but Villa didn't turn up with the form of the previous few weeks.



Adding, 'We played against a top team. The good thing about this is that we have some great players in the dressing room and we know that we won’t be putting in another performance like that. You can’t win every football match, everyone knows that but it’s the manner in which you deal with it. We weren’t at our best and that’s the disappointing thing.'

He also says that the build up was right and now the key is to get things turned around so they are ready to take on Portsmouth at home on October 18 at Villa Park.

Meanwhile Stiliyan Petrov says the defeat shows just how far Villa still have to go to break the top four.

Also in the Mail he said: 'I think we got outplayed. We have to be honest with ourselves. We have got a lot of things to work on to get to their level, we can see that.'



In an honest assessment he said the Villa squad was 'good' but not 'good enough to beat a team like Chelsea.'

I'm not sure that is totally right, we beat them at home last season with a poorer squad but the attitude on the night was 100% bang on whereas from what I can gather from those that were there yesterday, Villa just never turned up.

Petrov added, '‘We came here with high confidence but we didn’t show that on the pitch. They deserved to win and we deserved to lose.'

'Now it’s important we come back in the next game against Portsmouth. If we do that then everything will be okay again.'

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