English Premier League: Petrov says he trusts Martin O’Neill
The Bulgarian international, who plays for Aston Villa has come out in the media and stated his trust in Martin O’Neill. O’Neill who is the current manager of Aston Villa is yet to make any improvements to his squad of players at the club. Aston Villa finished above Liverpool in a sixth place spot in the English Premier League.
Ever since Martin O’Neill has taken over at the Birmingham club, Aston Villa have risen from mid table mediocrity to top ten impressiveness. O’Neill has spent quite a lot of transfer money over the past 3 seasons that he has been at Aston Villa; he has mostly bought young energetic English players such as Ashley Young from Watford in the summer of 2007 for around 10 million pounds. He also signed Stewart Downing from Middlesbrough for 12 million pounds in the 2009 summer transfer window.
Stiliyan Petrov, Aston Villa’s club captain was signed by Martin O’Neill after the manager took over at Aston Villa in the summer of 2006. Petrov was signed for a fee of around 6.5 million pounds from Celtic, a club where the Bulgarian had previously already played under Martin O’Neill as the Englishman was in charge at the Scottish club for five years from 2000 till 2005.
Upon his takeover at Aston Villa, O’Neill brought about massive changes along with club’s new owner Randy Lerner. Villa changed their club crest, improved their training facilities and also added several new players to their squad. The club also signed a deal with their new kit sponsors. The kit design was changed as well.
Recently, O’Neill has been criticized by Aston Villa supporters for now bringing champion’s league football to the club even though he has spent a considerable amount of cash on bringing in new players. Petrov has jumped to his manager’s defense and has said that fans should not worry about Villa’s lack of transfer activity this summer. The Bulgarian midfielder expressed his thoughts saying that Villa’s slowness in the transfer market is not a problem because O’Neill always does his business in the last three to four days of the transfer window.
He assured the fans by stating that, Randy Lerner was at the club’s training ground lately to meet with O’Neill, Petrov added that both the chairman and the manager are working towards signing new players for the club’s upcoming season. Petrov commented that, he is certain that the squad will be strengthened before the season starts because Lerner and O’Neill have great ambitions for Aston Villa. Stiliyan Petrov also said that O’Neill and Randy Lerner want to take the club to new heights and that’s why there will be new blood at Aston Villa before the transfer window closes on 1st of September 2010.
Aston Villa’s captain further added that, if his manager brings in the same quality as he did last season with the likes of Dunne, Warnock and Collins then everyone at the club will be quite happy. He went on to say that the above stated players had a tremendous impact on the squad as a whole.
Aston Villa will be looking to challenge Liverpool, Tottenham and Manchester City for a fourth place finish come the end of the 2010-2011 season. Villa Park has been waiting for top level European football ever since Martin O’Neill was appointed as the manager at the club.
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