Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill blasted the tackle that injured Stiliyan Petrov
Feb 11 2010 by Brian Dick, Birmingham Mail
Martin O'Neill
“It must be really sore if Stiliyan is unable to continue, I don’t know about Sunday yet, there must be some doubt about it. We will see.
“The doctor said to me he just thinks it’s a lot of soft tissue. He doesn’t think there is any serious damage done.”
But that might not have been the case had the former Celtic midfielder not been able to take evasive action.
“I thought it was a clear red card. I have always been on for outlawing two-footed challenges. Stiliyan if anything has done quite well to manoeuvre out of the way. I have seen it back since and I thought it was a red card.”
The Ulsterman made the surprise switch to 4-5-1 and promoted summer signing Fabian Delph into the line-up for just his third Premier League start.
The teenager looked comfortable in such illustrious company and turned in an industrious performance that made O’Neill purr.
Delph is still very raw but against a midfield trio of Darren Fletcher, Paul Scholes and Michael Carrick he competed well before departing after an hour.
“I thought he did fine for us in the game, I thought he was getting a little bit tired.
“He will learn a lot from that experience. That 60 minutes that he has got against those players, on the same field as them, will be so important for him.
“He is going to be a proper player.”
But otherwise it was a disappointing evening for Villa who faced with ten men were unable to take full advantage of slips by their Champions League chasing rivals Spurs and Liverpool.
Much of that was down to the way in which United managed the game. “When they had a man sent off I was hoping we would be able to take the initiative but I thought in the second half we didn’t create enough and make as much use of the extra man.
“Having said that we were playing against a real quality side who have been in situations like that before and been able to retain possession.
“From that viewpoint we could definitely learn something from it.”
