Stiliyan Petrov to stay as Villa captain
Thursday 30th September 2010, 11:00AM BST.
Stiliyan Petrov will remain Villa’s captain under Gerard Houllier – but the new manager is eager to see a line of leaders emerging from the dressing room.
Petrov was handed the armband by Houllier’s predecessor Martin O’Neill last year after Martin Laursen’s career was ended prematurely by injury.
Despite substituting the Bulgaria international late on in Sunday’s win over Wolves, Houllier has no plans to change the captain, believing Petrov knows the job.
However, the Villa boss is looking for other big personalities to come to the fore.
He said: “I won’t change captain. The captain is not only the leader on the field, he is a leader by example. He knows what we want to do anyway.
“I prefer to rely on a group of leaders – two or three players. Not only one person.
“One can be the technical leader, one can be the captain, one can be the energiser.”
Villa have a string of former skippers among their ranks with Richard Dunne (Manchester City), Nigel Reo-Coker (West Ham) and Curtis Davies (Albion) having all captained their previous clubs, while James Collins and Brad Friedel have worn the armband on occasion for Wales and Blackburn respectively.
But it’s Petrov who is looking forward to being Houllier’s lieutenant and leader in dressing room.
He said: “With a big manager like that, you listen and try to do what he tells you.
“As captain you know what you need to do, lead the boys, try to be a role model and lead the club.”
Houllier has already seen the sort of character from his team that he wants, especially after Sunday’s Wolves win when they had to wait until the 88th minute for Emile Heskey’s winner.
He said: “The good thing is that we had to suffer. When it’s hard and difficult and stormy you don’t want anybody hiding somewhere.
“Everybody was working.”
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Aston Villa fans have never been any good at
spotting a decent player,every time Ive watched Petrov he seems to play like a crab
`backwards`sidewards`backwards`sidewards.
Villa supporters seem to really seem to love
this bloke this to me he is another
Lee Hendrie.The best thing Houllier has done so far is to drag this clown off against
Wolves and sit him in row Z where he belongs.
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