Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill blasted the tackle that injured Stiliyan Petrov

Feb 11 2010 by Brian Dick, Birmingham Mail

Martin O'Neill

MARTIN O’Neill restated his desire to see two-footed tackles eradicated from football after he lost his Aston Villa captain in last night’s 1-1 draw with Manchester United.

The Villa boss believes challenges such as the one that saw Nani sent off and left Stiliyan Petrov with an ankle injury that could keep him out of Sunday’s FA Cup tie with Crystal Palace have no place in the sport.

The Portuguese was dismissed just short of the half-hour for a crude two-footed lunge at Petrov.

And while the United players claimed he took the ball, having jumped into the tackle it is undeniable that he also caught the Villa skipper who stayed down for some time and required treatment.

The Bulgarian was clearly troubled by the incident and despite doing his best to continue, he was forced off with a quarter of a frustrating match to go.

Although O’Neill thinks his captain’s condition is not too serious, he accepts the Bulgarian is a major doubt for this weekend’s fifth round tie.

“He is pretty sore at this minute,” O’Neill said. “He thought he was going to be OK at half time, he said he would continue on.

“But it’s certainly stiffened up a little bit. He thought he would be OK. We took Fabian Delph off and about three or four minutes later Stiliyan was unable to continue.