Aston Villa's middle man

Mar 11 2009 By Mat Kendrick

CENTRAL character Stiliyan Petrov has revealed why he will never be Martin O’Neill’s flexible friend in the manager’s vision for a versatile Villa.

O’Neill has regularly used several players out of position during the claret and blues’ surprise march into the Premier League top four this season.

Luke Young has deputised at left-back and centre-half Carlos Cuellar at right-back with most of the midfielders filling in at full-back.

But while Gareth Barry, Nigel Reo-Coker, Craig Gardner and James Milner have played out of position, Petrov has been stuck in the middle.

And the 29-year-old prefers to be a master of midfield rather than a jack of all trades after a nightmare experience at Celtic.

Petrov was made to run through hoops during an introduction to British football under John Barnes.

The former Liverpool and England winger’s woeful managerial stint at Parkhead included playing Petrov as a makeshift right-back.

A mistake in one of his first Celtic appearances resulted in the then teenage Petrov mistakenly gifting Motherwell a winning goal.