Stiliyan Petrov has heaped praise on Aston Villa midfielder Jack Grealish and suggests that he could have a decisive impact on Villa’s Championship play-off final against Derby County.
Grealish has been key for Aston Villa since returning from injury in Dean Smith’s sides 4-0 win against Derby back in March, which helped spark a club record ten successive Championship victories to propel Villa to the play-offs.
The midfielder’s return has been instrumental with Aston Villa only suffering just two defeats since he came back from injury, which came against champions Norwich City on the final day of the season and in the second leg of their play-off semi-final against West Bromwich Albion, with Smith’s winning the resulting shootout to reach Wembley.
Petrov has revealed that he believes if Grealish plays at his best he could be the man to make the difference for Aston Villa against Derby in the play-off final.
“He’s been the starlight of Villa. I think if he performs, if he’s at the top of his game, he can produce something from nothing. And when you have a player like that, you want him to be there for the best games,” Petrov told The Guardian.
“If Derby give Jack a little bit of freedom, he will hurt them. And I think they’re aware of that. I think you can see every team now, they try to hurt him from the start. But he’s got great resilience, he’ll get up, he’ll smile and he’ll go again. That’s the strength of Jack.”
OPINION
Petrov is right to suggest that the performance of Grealish could have a huge impact upon whether Aston Villa manage to beat Derby in the Championship play-off final at Wembley. The former Villa midfielder is also correct to praise Grealish for his quality and his attitude for dealing with opposition teams applying physical pressure on him, to attempt to prevent him being an influence on games. Grealish somewhat struggled to assert himself on the game in last season’s play-off final against Fulham, especially in the first half as Villa were beaten 1-0 at Wembley. However, this season this is a different Grealish and a different Villa side, coming into the play-offs in a real run of form and looking high in confidence ahead of the final. It will be interesting to see whether Grealish can manage to make a big impact on the game, and if he is at his best Aston Villa, as Petrov suggests will have a good chance of securing the win that would take the club back to the Premier League.