Villa wait on decision over Martin Laursen's future

Apr 22 2009 by Bill Howell, Birmingham Mail

A meeting between O’Neill and the player on Monday did not yield an outcome but Laursen’s announcement is now imminent.

“I will know for definite sometime over the next couple of days” said O’Neill, who refuted suggestions in a report yesterday that Laursen faced nine months on the sidelines with further knee surgery.

“That’s genuine hearsay,” he said.

“As I said on Friday the news on him is not great.”

With Laursen’s future very much in doubt and Gareth Barry likely to leave in the summer, there is an even more urgent need to tie up Stiliyan Petrov’s future.

O’Neill and the Bulgarian are still very much at the early stages of negotiations.

“We are waiting to hear back,” O’Neill said.

“The discussions have been going on very amicably. We would hope to be continuing that very shortly.”

Less pressing than Petrov, who has just a year remaining on his contract, are the futures of a number of players who have two years on their contracts, namely Zat Knight, Nigel Reo-Coker and John Carew.

O’Neill says those talks are very much on the back burner.

He said: “I haven’t even thought about that. It’s not on my mind.

“We have some games to try to win between now and the end of the season. We will look at everyone’s situation in the summer.”