“How is the season going: good or bad?” Unai Emery said, posing a question many Aston Villa supporters have been asking themselves. It is one with no simple answer. “It depends, if we are watching Champions League, wow, fantastic,” the Villa manager said, applauding like an enthusiastic theatregoer, dusting off his hands at qualifying automatically for the last 16. “If we are watching the FA Cup, fantastic, after a long time we are playing, close to progress,” he said of the club reaching the fifth round for the first time in 10 years. Then came an aching, juddering groan. “If we are watching the Premier League, errr, it’s not enough.”
The other thing Emery knows is this is a significant week for Villa, who host Liverpool on Wednesday night and Chelsea on Saturday hoping to breathe life into their quest to qualify for the Champions League in successive seasons, with fifth spot likely to offer a route on to that stage given English clubs’ success in Europe this term. Villa visit Crystal Palace next Tuesday and the following Friday they entertain Cardiff City, at risk of relegation to League One, for a place in the Cup quarter-finals.
