The Holy Trinity: Aston Villa conclusions from disappointing Premier League draw at Burnley

Villa are now up against it in the fight for Champions League places as their poor league form continues

It’s not easy to achieve two different objectives in the space of just a handful of fixtures at the end of a season, but that’s the situation in which Unai Emery now finds himself.

Aston Villa picked up one Premier League point from matches against relegation-threatened Tottenham Hotspur and relegation-sorted Burnley, leaving themselves vulnerable in the Champions League places with only fixtures against Liverpool and Manchester City remaining.

The Europa League final in between will have an effect for sure, which is why winning one of the previous two matches was so important. It wasn’t to be.

I don’t think the Spurs and Burnley matches had much in common. Villa didn’t throw the game against Burnley away in the same way as the previous league match against Spurs.

A little bit of sloppy play at inopportune moments from a couple of top performers proved very costly but I’d assess this as an average overall performance rather than a disastrous one.

Villa should already be over the line in the league. Instead, Emery and his players must now pull off something a bit special.

Here’s your Holy Trinity of Burnley match conclusions: