Fit-again Petrov raring to go

Aston Villa midfielder Stiliyan Petrov is back in training and confident he will be available for the Barclays Premiership clash at Newcastle on January 31.

Petrov, signed by Villa manager Martin O’Neill from Celtic for £8m (€12.1m) in August, has been left out of the side for the games with Manchester United and Watford to recover from a niggling hamstring problem.

But the former Bulgarian international has benefited from the two-week recuperation period and joined in with his team-mates on Tuesday at their Bodymoor Heath training complex.

Petrov said: “I feel a lot better now and it’s good to be back training. I should be ready for the Newcastle game and I can’t wait to get back into action.”

O’Neill admitted: “Stiliyan had been playing with a back-related hamstring problem which had been affecting his play. Players are playing lot of games, not just for our club but all over the place, with little niggles here and there, and Stiliyan was doing that for us as well.

“You don’t really want your players playing through the pain barrier with muscle-type injuries such as the one Stiliyan has had because that can affect them. It is better to have players out there who are certainly 80 to 90% (fit) in the games and we gave Stiliyan a break which hopefully will have done the trick.”

Petrov has had a mixed start to his Villa career after a promising start and there have been only glimpses of the form he displayed under O’Neill at Parkhead.