Aston Villa: Why Stiliyan Petrov hopes to be playing with Gareth Barry next term

May 6 2009 by Mathew Kendrick, Birmingham Mail

“I speak to Gareth all the time and when the good players stay in the club you want to stay as well,” he said.

“We have a great bunch of boys and an exciting young team.

“You want to see your best players stay.

“We would love Gareth to stay because he is an incredible player and we would rather have him here than somewhere else.

“I will vote for Gareth as our player of the season.”

Monday night’s victory over Hull, Villa’s first win in 10 league games, lifted them back above Everton into fifth place with a two-point advantage.

Petrov believes finishing in the top five is a major incentive over the remaining three games because it would affect Villa’s European schedule.

If Villa hang on to their current placing they would avoid having to enter the re-branded Europa League at one of the earlier qualifying stages.

“We still have three games to go and it will be a close chase with Everton for fifth place, but I hope we can do it and we will deserve that place with all the work we have done this season,” he said.

“If we finish fifth we will play in Europe at the end of August as opposed to July which would be a big thing.

“Some of the boys are playing in the England Under-21 championship and if we play later in August it will be even better for the team.”

The former Celtic playmaker was also full of praise for the Villa defence for keeping their first clean sheet in 13 attempts.

“When we were winning we kept clean sheets and when we do that we have players who can score at the other end and that is what happened against Hull,” he added.