Petrov Key For Villa

It's Laursen day on the official site, and he's praised top performer Stiliyan Petrov on the day he returns to training.

Following on from his comments about Richard Dunne, Laursen turned his attention to our new captain and restated some earlier thoughts about him. Click Here for full article.

With a refreshed and in some cases renewed Gabby, Ash, and Downing looking to terrorise defences next season, Laursen thinks that Petrov playing the anchor role will be key to their success.

'Stiliyan played a lot of games last season and he was important for the team in all of them. He is the captain and he is acting like the captain.'

Laursen thinks what stands out about Petrov is the consistency he shows regardless of the number of games he plays, describing his performances as 'quality and quantity'.

He is also a key player for us given our Plan A, as he is prepared to sit back and hold in midfield allowing others to use their qualities to move forward.

'When you have so many good offensive players like they do at Villa, it is extremely important to have one tactically excellent player who can hold in the midfield, in front of the back four and can play with the ball as well. He is so good at breaking up play.'

As ever, and in both the Dunne comments and these comments about Petrov some of them are strikingly similar to interviews Laursen did at the start of last season, but all these months on whilst most will still probably agree with his words on Dunne, plenty will disagree when it comes to Stan.

But each to their own.

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