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Petrov - can he play in a 4-4-2?


barry'sboots

Stan as a defensive midfielder in a 4-4-2?  

137 members have voted

  1. 1. Stan as a defensive midfielder in a 4-4-2?

    • Yes please
      86
    • Not on your life
      52


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Petrov is an outstanding player. What he lacks in pace he makes up for in inteligence. He is the main reason I go down the villa as I appreciate his fooball brain and try to replicate parts of his play for my team. His reaction speed enables him to get to the ball first, and the way he gets his body in the way of the ball and gains fouls from this is a joy to watch. The amount of interceptions he makes doesn't go unnoticed and I'm astounded that so many villa fans want him dropped. How many times does he lose the ball and how frustrated were his critics when NRC was constantly played and lost the ball on a regular basis? There is a reason why he got player's player and fan's player of the season and getting the captaincy. Maybe when other players such as Young, Sidwell, Carews etc. ball retention is as good as Petrovs, he won't be ruined after an hour due to having to win it back every few minutes.

Spot on.

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The fact as is as much energy/tenaciousness NRC has he lacks the passing/creativity. He'd be perfect if you get him to play the holding midfield role but he seems to get too frustrated with it. Petrov/Sidwell is the best combination we have at the moment and i'd like to see Downing/Delph try and force their way in sometime in the future.

Umm sorry but have we won a league match with Petrov/Sidwell in 4-4-2?

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The fact as is as much energy/tenaciousness NRC has he lacks the passing/creativity. He'd be perfect if you get him to play the holding midfield role but he seems to get too frustrated with it. Petrov/Sidwell is the best combination we have at the moment and i'd like to see Downing/Delph try and force their way in sometime in the future.

Umm sorry but have we won a league match with Petrov/Sidwell in 4-4-2?

yes.

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a great player IMO. Give him the right CM partner (sidders or NRC) and the right tactics, and with MON using his subs properly, then Stan is top notch.

well, for 70 minutes anyway, until he gets knackered.

But he's a great player IMO

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If you took the probable top 6 teams of this season he wouldn't make the first XI, not in a 4-4-2 anyways.

IMO he would.

also, we won 4-4-2 against pompey with stan and sidders the CM 2.

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If you took the probable top 6 teams of this season he wouldn't make the first XI, not in a 4-4-2 anyways.

IMO he would.

also, we won 4-4-2 against pompey with stan and sidders the CM 2.

Pompey who are tearing the league a new arsehole and honestly had justification to be disappointed with the amount of clear chances they had after Petrov faded.

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I know that you are just responding to Kiwivillan's remark, but quoting a home win against Pompey is hardly a ringing endorsement of a team selection when that team arguably has its sights set on CL qualification. This is made even less appropriate by the fact that, IMO, Pompey probably matched us in that game with the exception of a silly foul by Belhadj and a great solo effort by Gabby.

This is a bit like saying forget the crap run at the end of last season with Gareth and Stan in the CM positions because we did manage to beat Hull at home in those 15 games, even though again they pressed us hard for the last 20 minutes of that game without any real threat up front.

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The fact as is as much energy/tenaciousness NRC has he lacks the passing/creativity. He'd be perfect if you get him to play the holding midfield role but he seems to get too frustrated with it. Petrov/Sidwell is the best combination we have at the moment and i'd like to see Downing/Delph try and force their way in sometime in the future.

Umm sorry but have we won a league match with Petrov/Sidwell in 4-4-2?

the 2 have played twice together, in a CM pairing, both this season.

we won 2-0 at home to pompey, with relative comfort, although we could have played a little better.

we drew 1-1 at home against Citeh, in an end-to-end match against a team tipped by many to challenge for the title. game could have gone either way.

to turn this on its head .... Umm sorry but have we lost a league match with Petrov/Sidwell in 4-4-2?

:winkold:

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I know that you are just responding to Kiwivillan's remark, but quoting a home win against Pompey is hardly a ringing endorsement of a team selection when that team arguably has its sights set on CL qualification.

well, they've only played together twice! :lol:

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I know that you are just responding to Kiwivillan's remark, but quoting a home win against Pompey is hardly a ringing endorsement of a team selection when that team arguably has its sights set on CL qualification. This is made even less appropriate by the fact that, IMO, Pompey probably matched us in that game with the exception of a silly foul by Belhadj and a great solo effort by Gabby.

This is a bit like saying forget the crap run at the end of last season with Gareth and Stan in the CM positions because we did manage to beat Hull at home in those 15 games, even though again they pressed us hard for the last 20 minutes of that game without any real threat up front.

For a very long time, according to many of our posts, the biggest reason for our misery since last February seemed to be the signing of Heskey.

Now it seems like it has been proved wrong because the reason now is (or was) Petrov (in 4-4-2).

I don't think there is any single player we can blame for our last season's downfall or this season's bad results.

And I don't think, when we have had good results this season, that there is any single player we can thank for not being in the team.

IMO the reason's have been, and are, tactical. The formations are part of it, so are the player selections, but after that the biggest factor is how you prepare yourself, how you approach the next game, what is your goal, what is in your mind when you step out of the dressing room before the kick-off. It's mental. Do you want to win or is a draw good enough?

And last season was mental disaster, IMO. Stoke 2-0 and a few minutes left, Arsenal 7 (or was it even 9) points behind. We just stopped playing, we couldn't handle the pressure. Nothing to do with Petrov, nothing to do with Heskey and nothing to do with 4-5-1 (or 4-4-2). Being 4th was just too much. We had already finished 4th in February.

For the rest of the season our tactics were defensive and we struggled. We conceded many late goals, not because of tiredness but because of catenaccio and just giving the ball away. It was like: Close your eyes, kick the ball and hope for the best, almost 90 mins. Brainless. Torture. And that begun when still eleven PL games left.

Imagine Arsenal - would they stop playing if they needed only a couple of points when five games left. No way! They would try to win as always. They finished 4th, we finished 6th.

Besides, we were never that good.

And this season with 4-4-2, maybe Sidwell should do more creative work in CM, Petrov is alone there. No wonder he gets tired.

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Didn't they play together in the Blackburn loss and Citeh draw?

sidders didn't play v Blackburn.

CM was Stan & Delph.

Sidders & Stan: Pompey & Citeh. 1 win, 1 draw.

not a straw to beat Mr Petrov with, IMHO.

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Agreed Jon. Equally not a strong enough or large enough sample to conclude that these are the best two, certainly when the only other central pairing to have been given a chance is Stan and Delph and that is clearly not going to work, at least in the short term, from the evidence to date.

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