Aston Villa are sweating over the fitness of their Player Of The Year Stiliyan Petrov who suffered a dislocated shoulder during the Peace Cup clash with Atlante.
The Bulgarian midfielder, a strong candidate to replace Gareth Barry as skipper for next season, suffered the setback during the first half of Villa's 3-1 success in Spain.
The midlands club expect to find out in the next 48 hours the extent of Petrov's setback and O'Neill told Aston Villa TV: "Stiliyan dislocated his shoulder and our doctor put it back in immediately."
He added: "He is feeling a little better but we don't know just at this moment how much damage he has done. It was obviously the low point of the night.
"But we don't know the extent of the problem. We will find out over the next couple of days to see how it settles down. We just don't know. But it is a concern to us."
Petrov took time to adapt to life in the Barclays Premier League after becoming O'Neill's first major signing in a £6million switch from Celtic during the summer of 2006.
But he sparkled in a holding role last season as Villa clinched a place in Europe for the second successive season.
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we need at least 8 descent players not cast offs!!!or we play baggies in championship next !!
Very poor coverage Yahoo, I was able to get coverage of peace Cup games including Real Madrid and Juventus. but this is very poor on Villa. I expect you've just stolen a few lines from the Villa website. It only confirms you are London and Big 4 biased along with the rest of the media. I'll get my coverage from the Villa website in future. I enjoyed the discourse with other fans, but signing out.
THE TUSCAN VILLAN
what a good start and we aint played in prem yet. villa will have half a squad to start and i bet we dont get any new signing either so lets just say hello to the 1st division now. unless o,neil gets his arse in the transfer market and does his job properly and please no more donkeys or oaps fit players who have quility and skill
Tell me about it. I was watching the first game and when Heskey went down after 5 mins I was shaking my head. Last thing we need. Then Luke Young.... now Petrov!
Time to sign some players so we have depth for the long season ahead.
Robbie Keane is a possible target now that Spurs have nabbed Crouch. I'd take him in a heartbeat as he'd make everyone around him better with his creativity and craftiness. Tuncay is also available along with a few other names like Huntelaar from Real and Upson from West Ham. With the addition of Toure at City Richard Dunne could be available too. We need to bolster that backline. Davies proved again today with the OG that he is not dependable enough to challenge the big boys. Nicky Shorey looked shaky at best with Cuellar easily taking that cake as best defender. We need to bulk up the midfield/back four or forget about our Champions League aspirations altogether.
Great. We end up with a load of injuries even before the season starts.
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