Petrov’s Form Desire

Stiliyan Petrov has admitted he is gutted over our inability to see matches to the end, and has called on the team to become more consistent in games.

Speaking on the official site after yesterday’s disappointment, Petrov was upbeat about the fact that we showed we could compete with the ‘very best’, now we have to learn how to beat them and beat them well.

He expressed a certain sense of confusion as to how we managed to lose the game, but didn’t go quite as far as mentioning the officials.

‘It’s difficult to know how we lost the game. After the disappointment at Anfield, the lads really put in a performance against Manchester United. There was plenty of determination.

‘We matched them throughout but the last 10 minutes have killed us. We just can’t seem to be able to see games through at the moment.

‘We didn’t deserve to lose but this game is all about picking up results and points and we didn’t manage that.

‘We need to sort these things out – it’s up to us to do that. If we want to achieve things this season, we need to learn quickly.

‘When you play the Big Four, you always seem to raise your game. Let’s hope we can have that same level of performance from now until the end of the season. That’s the aim. We have showed at varying points this season that we can perform to a really high level.

‘We need to pick ourselves up and quickly. We have a lot to play for. We have worked so hard this season we don’t want all that good work to go to waste.’