Good afternoon and welcome to our live coverage of Aston Villa vs Spurs, which could prove a pivotal match in the race for Champions League qualification.
The waters are muddied ever so slightly by the uncertainty over whether fourth or fifth place will be enough this year, but Villa and Spurs look strong favourites to fill both positions. It is just a question of which way round they finish, unless Manchester United produce a string of wins which belie their current performance levels.
Villa lost their last key top-four head-to-head at home to United last month, but spurned numerous good chances before Scott McTominay’s late winner. Much could depend on how the home side recover from Thursday night’s game at Ajax, where Leon Bailey and John McGinn started on the bench. Spurs by contrast, had a free week. Unai Emery and Ange Postecoglou both like their teams to squeeze up the pitch at every opportunity, and with pace aplenty in both forward lines we will surely get goals at Villa Park.
Victory for Spurs would see them move to within two points of Villa with a game in hand, but defeat would see them fall eight points behind. Win and you would make Spurs front-runners to finish fourth, although they do face a brutal April likely to feature trips to Newcastle, Liverpool and Chelsea as well as home games against Manchester City and north London rivals Arsenal. Spurs face City, Arsenal and Liverpool consecutively so they could prove kingmakers in the title race.
Postecoglou is not just thinking about fourth though, and implied that Newcastle and Man Utd’s seasons are proof that Champions League football is no panacea.
“There are a couple of teams who got into the Champions League this year from last year, who had a good season,” Postecoglou said. “Does that guarantee anything the following season? No. I’ve said all along, I’m in no desperation to get something just for comfort or insurance. I’m here to create a team that wins things. For me, it defies logic – I’m just not built that way – to aim for anything other than the top.”
Full team news on the way shortly.