Stiliyan Petrov slams this week's pointless international friendlies as "a waste of time"

Aug 8 2010 by Mathew Kendrick, Sunday Mercury

Stiliyan Petrov

STILIYAN Petrov has criticised the scheduling of unnecessary international fixtures in the run up to the Premier League kick-off and dubbed this week’s friendlies “a waste of time”.

The Bulgarian midfielder faces a gruelling trip to Russia and back via his homeland this week for Wednesday’s pointless practice match before Saturday’s curtain-raiser against West Ham.

Petrov will return to Birmingham on Thursday evening and will not be back at Bodymoor Heath to rejoin Martin O’Neill’s men for their crucial training sessions until Friday morning.

Villa’s captain is not the only claret and blue international affected by the shoddy timing with the England, Ireland, USA and Norway games also set to disrupt the club’s preparations.

“I think we play about 10 international matches before the new year,” said Petrov.

“It’s very hectic with internationals, league and then European games coming very quickly, but that’s our job so we can’t complain.

“Big teams are doing it so we should do it as well. I don’t see the reason behind it because you’re fighting to get ready for the season and then all of a sudden there’s internationals for no reason.

“We’ll meet up again in three weeks’ time to start qualification, but obviously people arrange these games and we just need to deal with them.