What Aston Villa need to do to secure a top five finish in the Premier League this season
It hasn’t been a good weekend of results for Aston Villa.
Losing to 10-man Brentford, even in controversial circumstances, means they’ve now lost successive home league games for the first time in nearly two years.
Liverpool made light work of Newcastle United at home, while Chelsea came from two goals behind to defeat West Ham at Stamford Bridge.
There was late drama at Old Trafford this afternoon as well, with Manchester United securing all three points at home against Fulham.
Villa are now seven points clear of sixth place, with fifth place expected to be enough for Champions League qualification this season.
There is still a sizable gap between Villa and Liverpool, however, meaning the defeat to Brentford on Sunday shouldn’t be cause for great alarm.
What is more worrying has been Manchester United’s recent resurgence and Liam Rosenior’s bright start at Chelsea. Liverpool, meanwhile, have lost only one of their last 12 league matches, albeit drawing four in a row before their defeat at Bournemouth.
For Villa, now is not the time to look over their shoulders or get nervous about the chasing pack.
In five of the last six seasons, hitting 67 points has been enough to finish in the top five, with the average points total to finish fifth over that period being 66 points.
With 14 games left in the league campaign, if Villa win half of them, they would reach 67 points.
Seventy points is generally the benchmark teams target for Champions League qualification, so eight wins from their remaining 14 matches would hit that target.
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