Electrophilic substitution on disubstituted benzene, when deactivating groups are at para

As far as I have been able to understand this, the sites of electrophilic substitution are majorly decided on basis of the fact that "Where the electron density is more, electrophilic substitution occurs there".


This resonated with my intuition, but while looking at it for 4-nitrobenzaldehyde, my teacher told me that major site of substitution is meta with respect to aldehyde.



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> [![4-Nitrobenzaldehyde](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kAhWf.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kAhWf.png)
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Pondering over it, I thought that since the reaction proceeds such that positive charge develops on the position adjacent to the site of substitution, thus it must be a location where electron density is more, i.e. meta to the nitro group. But this "ended" my intuition and I am doubtful whether such a reasoning is correct or not.


