Petrov wants Villa derby winner

Stiliyan Petrov admits he would love to win the Villa fans over by scoring the derby winner against Birmingham on Sunday.

The Bulgarian midfielder is hoping to keep his place after playing the last two games and is itching to get his chance against Blues after relishing the derby atmosphere in Old Firm clashes for Celtic.

"The boys have been on about this game for a long time," he said. "It's a great experience to play in this derby game.

"We're all looking forward to it and we hope we can get the result.

"I had a good record in those games. I hope I can have the same positive record next week in the derby. I scored a few important goals, a few winners.

"So if I could score the winer it would be great. The fans have been great from the start of the season.

"You saw it was a full house again against Derby and I hope we can bring them some good nights and they can enjoy end of the season when we get up the table."

Petrov believes Villa can qualify for Europe if they can keep their form which saw them reocrd their fifth home win in seven.

"Why not? At the moment we're only four points off fourth place, so you never know.

"You just need to keep playing each game and we'll see where we are going to end up."

Petrov believes defender Martin Laursen, who scored his third goal of the season in Saturday's 2-0 win over Derby, has become a key player for Villa.

"Martin Laursen has been great for us – not just defensively, but he's scoring goals," said Petrov. "I think his confidence is very high at the moment and he's doing really well.

"It was also great for Ashley (Young) to score – I think he closed his eyes and hoped he didn't miss.

"His confidence is getting even higher and he's really coming on."