‘It is do-able’ – Villa ace remains positive about achieving key objective
‘It is do-able’ – Villa ace remains positive about achieving key objective
Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins insists that it’s all to play for still as we continue to pursue a place in the Champions League again next season.
Villa secured three crucial points this past weekend as we picked up a battling 1-0 win at Brentford, and that in turn lifted us to seventh place in the Premier League standings.
Albeit we’ve played a game more than our rivals in that section of the table, with nine games to go, we’ve put ourselves in a position to be in that battle for a top five finish, which could be enough to secure a return to Europe’s top table next year.
Importantly, as Watkins notes below, we’ve yet to play many of the teams around us in the standings, and so they effectively become make or break games between now and the end of the campaign to determine how high we can finish.
In turn, there are multiple opportunities for us to close the gap and climb the table to achieve our ultimate objective, but naturally, given the quality of our rivals combined with our ongoing Champions League and FA Cup commitments, the squad and Unai Emery are going to have to dig deep and find plenty of answers and solutions in the coming weeks.
Like many of us felt after Saturday evening though, our win at Brentford was a fundamental one for our hopes of breaking into the top five, as after our struggles away from home, defensively and in games immediately after our European outings, we’ve hopefully built up some positive morale and confidence in our ability to balance that in the final stretch.
“100 per cent,” Watkins said when asked about Villa’s chances of making the top five, as per BirminghamLive. “We still have to play Forest, we still have to play Newcastle. We have Man City as well. If we win those games we are right up there.
“We are now focusing on the Champions League but the boss is always telling us to concentrate on the Premier League as the most important competition. If you are consistent in that you can make it into Europe or the Champions League.
“Especially at home we have let some points slip and then our away form hasn’t been great. Had we just won a few more we would be where Nottingham Forest are.
“But we still have nine matches left and I still feel like we can finish in the top four. It is do-able.”
Those encounters all become crunch clashes for Villa, and that’s a level of pressure and demand that the players are going to have to deal with if we want to continue our progress.
Importantly, we’re continuing to get players back from injury, and that will be imperative in the run-in to give Emery as many options as possible to be able to rotate, and keep key individuals fresh and steer clear of further injury woes.
For now though, our full focus will be on Club Brugge as we look to see off the Belgian side in the second leg of our round-of-16 Champions League tie, and with a commanding 3-1 lead from the first leg, we’re in a good position to do so if we produce our best at Villa Park on Wednesday night.
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