Stiliyan Petrov reckons Aston Villa must be more ruthless to carry on where Martin O'Neill left off

Sep 26 2010 by Mat Kendrick, Sunday Mercury

CAPTAIN Stiliyan Petrov has warned Aston Villa that they must develop a ruthless streak under Gerard Houllier if they are to complete the success story Martin O’Neill started.

Houllier accused Villa of being stuck in a “comfort zone” during his first few days in charge and instantly revealed his ambition to turn them into a winning club by shedding their reputation for being too nice.

And Petrov has backed his new boss by admitting that collectively the players at Villa Park need to develop a harder, competitive edge to continue the four years of progress they made under O’Neill, starting with today’s Wolves derby at Molineux.

“We’d love to do that,” said Petrov. “We went to play Stoke and now Wolverhampton and they can be very physical.

“Sometimes we aren’t like that, but as long as we win games and get points we’ll be happy.

“Sometimes people say we play well but we don’t keep leads. We need to be more ruthless – in a fair way – so we win the game. You can’t coach ruthlessness, no – you need to have it in the players. They are either nice or they make tackles and never give up and I think we have players like that who make tackles and never give up.”